Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to From Caving in to Crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney, and I'm your host, David. So good to see you, my friend.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: That was great to be here, Drew. Thank you for inviting me.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: It's my pleasure. And I love that we're in a couple networking groups together, too, because I can't get enough of David Schreiner Kahn.
So, David, you know, we've been talking about a lot of different things since we've gotten to know each other, and one thing I have never really dove deep into with you is how you've gotten to where you are. I know life is not linear, and I know you didn't wake up and in diapers say, I want to do what I'm doing now. Can you just give us a little about, you know, growing up and. And what has molded you into the. Into the man you are now?
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Great question, Drew. And I think I'm getting closer to what I want to be doing.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: At this point in life. But, yes, it's definitely. Life is not linear.
Work is not linear.
It's all one big iterative process. We try stuff, see what works, what doesn't work, and hopefully we do more of what does work and less of what doesn't. Although sometimes it does feel like we're moving backwards, too.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So. Yeah. So. So, you know, the sort of summary version of at least the professional side of my life is I studied engineering, which was. I was kind of very strongly encouraged to do that by my parents, and I did better in math and science in high school than I did in the humanities. So it seemed like a very logical choice.
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: And, you know, particularly when I was in College in the 70s, it was considered kind of a. A safe profession where you could make a decent living.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: And you go to work for some big corporation, and particularly for the bigger ones, there's usually opportunity to move around and move up.
And in those days, because it was before there was. There was portability with retirement funds, you actually needed to be working for one employer for a long period of time to get retirement funds.
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: So that was actually part of the deal. And I was off to a good start, had two different jobs as an engineer. And just after my second annual performance review in my second job, where I got a very positive review and a nice raise, a month later, my boss calls me into his office. He says, david, I have good News and bad news. The good news is you're doing a great job. Bad news is you don't have a job here anymore. And I was totally blindsided by this.
And, and, and I'll come back to this because I, I, I suspect this is an area where you, you may find, find it valuable for, for the listeners of the show. Absolutely. So the short story is I ended up deciding I didn't want to have anything to do with sort of corporate life anymore. Went into the nonprofit sector, stayed there for 23 years, and then along the way I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted more control over my career destiny, in part because of that, that first experience of being fired. And I decided that what I really wanted to do was to try my hand at having my own business. So in 2006, I went from a nonprofit executive to being a solo consultant. And, and then the entrepreneurship is another like non linear journey. And today, fast forward, my focus is helping corporate refugees. People very much similar to my journey and I think also similar to yours.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: People that either leave voluntarily or get pushed out of their job when they're kind of, you know, often mid career or later.
[00:04:39] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: And they want to do their own thing. So how, you know, how do you actually set up the, the structure and have all the, all the ingredients you need for that to work, you know, to, to start, run and grow your own business so you can just do more of what you love and get paid what you're worth and support your lifestyle?
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, you know, let me. Well, we'll touch on this a little bit because I'm always intrigued. You had the corporate crisis happen when they, when they let you go.
What made you think that the non profit would be any different? And did you find any difference in the corporate mentality of a non profit versus a for profit?
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah, those are really great questions. And the. So, so when I was let go, it was really shocking. Um, and I was totally blindsided by it. I was not really paying attention to the business side of what the company that I worked for was doing. I was focused on engineering. That's what I was taught and that's what I was good at.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: I was focused on solving engineering problems.
And it, and it was a time when the economy wasn't great and, and it was tough to find another job as an engineer. And then plus my heart wasn't in it. And I was right. I was living in Boston at the time, which was not really a great, great market for chemical engineers. There were lots of other kinds of engineers, but not so much in my, in my specialty.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: And relocating to the kinds of places where I was more likely to find employment was not. Also is not so attractive. I remember going to a job interview in a light bulb factory in the middle of Ohio and I'm like, it's like I just couldn't see living there.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: You know, and I wasn't alone. I was married and, you know, newly married and, and it just didn't seem like the place to, to start a family. Didn't speak to me. And that was true for, you know, a lot of different places where I might have found work. And again, the economy wasn't great, so finding work in my field actually wasn't as easy as it, as it might have been.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: And then. Yeah, so. So I was, you know, struggling with finding something that I thought would involve perhaps a higher purpose plus, plus being able to make a living. And the, the unemployment was, was pretty long. It was over a year. And I ended up, on the advice, the recommendation of a good friend of mine, ended up signing up for a professional kind of professional slash personal development program called Life Work Planning, which is about creating a whole strategic vision and strategic plan for your life, including work and other aspects of how you spend your time.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: And came out of that with this aha. That there, there are ways that one could do something that is more satisfying and really would speak more to what nourish I thought would nourish my soul.
And doing some market research led me to try to get a job in the non profit sector, which I did once I sort of was really clear on what I wanted to achieve and how to do it. I ended up getting a, a job offer that I thought was, was the right kind of job offer within two months.
And in a totally different field.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I was going to say. So nothing to do with engineering.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Nothing to do with engineering. The closest that, that, that I would say came to engineering was when the, the boiler broke in the facility that I was managing.
I sort of knew a few tricks to kind of get it to restart.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Do you consciously avoid engineering when you looked in the nonprofit sector?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Yes, I consciously avoided engineering anything corporate.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: So that, you know, so I ended up doing, doing the kind of work that did have a much more direct impact on, on people's lives. And I felt much better about what I was doing.
[00:09:26] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: And the answer to your second question about what, what did I see in the nonprofit sector?
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Was, was actually it depended on the organization. There were some organizations that really made an effort to, to have, I would say, to espouse values that, that involved caring for not just the people that the organization served, but the, the employees, contractors, you know, having good relationships with vendors, kind of doing the right thing in the way they did business. And then there were others that behaved very similarly to the, to my last corporate experience.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: And, you know, and the longer I was in the nonprofit sector, the more I noticed those that didn't bend over backwards to kind of care for employees.
[00:10:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Which is also part of what led me to want to just have more control over, over my income.
[00:10:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting when we talk about non profit, I, I always was not a fan of that term because I thought it was somewhat misleading because. But all those organizations still want to have a profit, which, which is revenue over expenses. It's what they do with that quote, unquote profit. And whether it's reinvested in the organization for like, for nonprofits or given to shareholders for, for the, for the, you know, for the. For profit. So in my experience. Yeah. It all, it depended on the organization, the distinction between the two.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Correct, Correct. Yeah. And by the way, this is something I tell people that are in the nonprofit world, including clients of mine that are nonprofits, is being a nonprofit doesn't mean that you, you can't make a profit or shouldn't make a profit. In fact, I believe as a nonprofit, you should make a profit because there, there will be lean years when you need to have assets to carry you through. It takes a long time to, to kind of develop a new funding source.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: And, and you can, A funding source can dry up really quickly. And I've seen it happen where, you know, organization loses 20, 40, 50% of their revenue overnight.
[00:11:44] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: And unless they have money in the bank, they're not going to survive.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: So that's really important. The only thing that's different is if you're a nonprofit in America, you're tax exempt.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: So you. And you're not actually exempt from all taxes, but you're exempt from a lot of taxes, right?
[00:12:00] Speaker C: No.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: So true. Absolutely. So there's two things that, that I heard. One was your heart wasn't in it with the engineering. And that comes back to passion, doing what you're passionate about. And the second thing is that you were newly married when you lost your job. So I want to touch on both of those. The first part, the belief system, you went into engineering because it was suggested to you by your parents that that would be a Good place to go. What are your thoughts about what truly is your belief system versus what was the belief system that was taught to you?
[00:12:42] Speaker B: Well, I think as we get, the older we get in our existence on this planet, the more we realize that we may have started off with a belief system that was imparted to us, suggested to us, or dictated to us by those around us, and the more we are able to come up with our own belief system. You know, different people progress at different rates.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: At different stages.
Yeah.
I grew up in a family where it was challenging to have your own belief system. Yeah. Let's just put it that way.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Yes. And I can relate to that.
Yeah. And we're usually put on the path of what conformity is in the gen. You know, in the. In the environment at that time. And yeah, I was definitely in the same. Same boat you were. The other thing that struck me is newly married, lost your job, and you were looking even in places that were far away from where you lived, but you still kept here the, the gut feeling that this isn't right for you. How did that work with a new relationship with your wife and, and, you know, you two working together, that's. That's not necessarily a compromise, but something that you can collaborate on and make it good for both of you and the relationship?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I would say that financial stresses are often the triggers for all kinds of things, including in relationships. I have to say that I feel blessed that my wife and I have always had a pretty communicative relationship where we're generally on the same page about. About the important things in life.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: And, you know, now. Now it seems even easier to say because we've been together for, at this point, it's 43 years. That's a long time.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Wonderful.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: You know, but at that point, you know, the story we're talking about is, you know, we had been married for two years at that point, so it was pretty early on.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: We had just bought our first.
First.
First home.
So there was a mortgage.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: You know, so that. So there was that pressure.
[00:15:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: And she had just graduated from grad school in a field where suddenly there were no entry level jobs.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: Oh, boy. Okay.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So. So basically we were in a very tough spot financially, which added a lot of pressure to everything, and it didn't seem like there was an easy way out.
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: It sounds like you had a solid foundation in the relationship that could withstand something heavier like the economy and your finances and the job. So kudos to you and your wife for Building that solid foundation, because you know what happens when we have a weak foundation? You put anything heavy on it, it collapses.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: So, yes. And, yeah, I've seen that way too many times with other people. So we're, you know, we've been very blessed that we've been able to weather a lot of storms in our lives.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Wonderful. I want to learn a little more about the transition from nonprofit to where you are now and that entrepreneurial spirit. And you had said, we're going to get back to that. So I guess now might be a good point, a good part to get to that. Yeah.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So, as I said, I was in the field for. For 23 years, and I had three different jobs. I had a job that was three years, two years, and then 18 years. So the last one was a very long run. And I started off in a number two position in a small education agency, and I ended in a number two position in a. In a bigger, more complicated education agency.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: So. So the organization grew, the responsibilities grew, the staff grew, the income grew, and there was a. You know, and I don't. As I said earlier, I had always thought about, like, what. What would come next, because I. And I learned early on that you always need to be planning what's going to come next, and you need. And you need to have alternatives in your plan because you never know how things are going to work.
And I, you know, I thought about actually doing something as an entrepreneur. When I had lost my engineering job, I didn't know anybody who was an entrepreneur. I had no clue how. How it worked.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: And it's just. It couldn't happen at that point. But I did pay attention to other people that I saw who were successful entrepreneurs, and particularly in the nonprofit field, many of the board members that I had worked with and got to know really well were very successful in business.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: That's how they got to become philanthropists.
[00:17:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: And. Right. And so I.
I had thought again, thought long and hard about trying to make that. That leap. And I had a good friend of mine who actually, like me, studied engineering. He ended up also leaving corporate life early on in his career and went into his own business as an engineer.
And he kept saying, david, why don't you just, you know, do what I do? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I need the paycheck, but, you know, the whole scenario.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: I certainly do.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: And, you know, sometimes life gives you opportunities, whether or not you're ready for them.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: And there were two things happened kind of in in close succession. One is I was asked to be part of an executive education program for nonprofit leaders to sort of give me the formal training that I never had.
[00:18:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: All those years.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: So I was in this program that was associated with the Columbia Business School, you know, which is a great, great school. It was a great program. And basically they were, they were grooming those of us that were in the program to move up a notch in the organizational hierarchy.
Right. In our field.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: And just as I was finishing the program, the, the board of my organization made a decision to hire a new CEO.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Don't you love that? The time.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: And so. Right. So the person who had hired me seven at that point, it was 17 years earlier and was. Was going to be stepping aside but not leaving the organization. They were, they found a new role for him.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Okay, Right.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: And they, then they were going to bring on a new CEO. And the new CEO was somebody I knew well because he was actually a board member. Interesting. And he and I had some overlap in skills.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: And I saw, okay, so this organization is now paying three big salaries instead of two.
I don't know that this is going to last that long. And there's probably not going to be room for all three of us. And I know which one of us.
[00:20:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: May need to find some other way to get. To make a, make a living.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: So. So in fact, that did come to fruition. Took a year.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: But, but I thought, okay, so I now have this training. I have all this experience in the field. What do I really want to do? I really want more control over, over my, my career.
[00:20:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: I'll become a consultant. And I, Right. I had worked with lots of consultants, of course, friends who are consultants.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: That, you know, how, how hard can this be? And so I, you know, I waited until, till I got pushed out because there would be a little financial cushion to be able to. Right. To get my business started. So I didn't actually do anything other than think about it until.
[00:20:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: I had to. And then, as I said, a year later, I was asked to leave and I said, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be a consultant. And I started telling everybody I knew and I started getting some business.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Good.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: You know, so it wasn't like, you know, the first day that I announced it, but within a few months got the first client, got a second client, and, and actually the, you know, the transition worked. Okay.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Yeah. It's always good when you can do consulting in a field that you're an expert in. So finding the clients was a little easier than if you had broken away and been a consultant. Something completely new.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Right. If I tried to do something brand new, I think it would have been pretty hard.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: All right, well, tell us about a couple last questions and I want to promote you. So we're going to, we're going to have to find out how the audience can find you. Last two questions. David. You're sitting down with seven to ten year old David and you're going to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him?
[00:22:01] Speaker B: I'm going to say a few things. First of all, I like the way you kind of introduced this whole idea that life and careers are non linear.
[00:22:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: So to think about how that may, how that plays out and be prepared for it.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Always be planning. I think you always need to have a plan B and be ready to actually execute on it. That's really important.
And the other thing that I think is really important is not to be afraid to try something new, particularly something where you don't have all the pieces in place. And as an 8 year old, it's easier to do that than as an 80 year old, right?
[00:22:48] Speaker A: True.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Right. The older you get, the harder it is to do. The more accomplished you become in your field, the harder it is to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. Because you're used to being right and people look right, people around you look to you for you being right. So it gets harder and harder to step out of your comfort zone. So that's, that's something I would say to somebody and, and to pay attention, particularly in school. School teaches us that there's right and wrong.
[00:23:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: And that you always want to be right. And it, it kind of reinforces the notion that stepping out of your comfort zone is not smart.
And I think that's actually wrong.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yep. It's okay to be wrong because that's how we learn.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: It is okay to be wrong.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Just don't do it too many times.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: And learn from, don't do it too many times with this on the same kind of step.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: There you go. Learn, Learn from it and move on.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: All right. Yeah. Now it's still you, David, but now you're sitting down with David, the new businessman, new entrepreneur. What business advice would you give young David?
[00:24:01] Speaker B: His two things that you really need to do.
One is you need to do market research. And the second is you need to sell. And they're distinct and they're separate. And the way you get to them is do a little bit of self reflection, identify what it is that you most love doing, what it is you're best at doing, who you want to serve, what kinds of problems do you think they have that you can solve. Then you do your market research around that to try to go deeper and learn what is it that about your hypothesis that either may be true or not true. And you got to do this by talking to people who know about the kind of problem you're trying to solve. Get some validation before you try to offer anything. Validation on the problem, willingness for people to, to pay for that, to pay for it, whether it is actually sufficiently profitable.
And don't try to sell to people with whom you're doing the market research because otherwise they're not going to be, they won't be as straightforward with you. So do the market research, do enough of it so you get a sense of, yeah, I think there's a chance I can sell this and then go out and try to sell it. Don't worry about doing anything internally with your business, you know, business administration, your website, LinkedIn profile or whatever it is. Just try to sell. Get somebody to actually validate your hypothesis by giving you money when that starts. Right when that starts. Then you can worry about building a website for the second customer or the third customer, but get that first customer because that's the most important validation. I've seen too many people spin their wheels trying to create something that nobody wants to buy.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: That's a very good point. Clarity of purpose first and then you build the infrastructure.
David, this has been wonderful. Absolutely fantastic.
The listeners are going to want more of David Schreiner Kahn and can you please provide them? How do they reach you? What are you doing now? And how do they get to you?
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Smashingtheplateau.com is the repository for, for all of our information. That's where you can listen to hundreds of episodes of my podcast. That's where you can learn about our fabulous community for corporate refugees that are starting running and growing their own businesses. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn, so you can connect with me there as well.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: That's wonderful. David. Hey, thank you so much for coming on, my friend. I am grateful that you're in my life, in my community, and we're going to continue to build our relationship.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: Thank.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Thanks again for everything you're doing for the community, David.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Thank you, Drew.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it. If you find yourself immersed in adversity and would like to find support from other men in times of struggle. Please become a member of my Men's Supporting Men Collaboration tribe by emailing me at drew at profitcompassion. Com expressing your interest and I'll get in touch with you. Speak to you soon.
