Own Your Career

Chapter 6Succeeding in the Workplace

My corporate career feels like a failure. Not because I struggled to get jobs or because I wasn't smart enough to do the work that was assigned to me. It was because I didn't play the game.

At the time of writing, I've been out of “the game” for a little over a year. I spent five years working a corporate job, three of which I spent also building Break Your Budget on the side. Let's use me as an example here.

If you were to look at me now, you'd view me as successful. I'm 28, I have half a million dollars in the bank, I make multiple six-figures annually, I am self-employed, I've built a thriving business, and I am sitting in my cushy apartment in Los Angeles writing my second book.

What you don't see is that I never once got promoted in any of my three corporate jobs. The feedback I received in one of my annual performance reviews is that I am not proactive (the irony of this is not lost on me). I've been told I am intimidating, not smart enough, and that I “don't understand financial concepts” (ha!).

I've been passed over for countless jobs, ghosted by recruiters, rejected for not having enough experience and am too embarrassed to admit how many times I have cried at work or in front of colleagues (and even one time, my boss).

Corporate America chewed me up and spit me out. I tried so hard to succeed, from taking professional certifications, going to networking events, pruning my resumé, and biting my tongue in more instances than I can ...