Episode One: How to Break Out of a Slump

The Power of Bold
@thepowerofbold
www.thepowerofbold.com
Episode 1: How to Break Out of a Slump
Transcript
What’s up, everyone. This is Adam Pascarella. Welcome to episode one of The Power Of Bold.
Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in to this first episode of The Power Of Bold, which is the
podcast about entrepreneurship, taking risks, and embracing boldness in your life. My name is
Adam Pascarella and I'm a 28-year-old living in New York City.
I'm really excited to be starting this podcast. Back in the day, I started a podcast when I worked
for a newspaper in college, and it was a terrific time. So I have some experience, but I'm still
relatively new at this. I'm just excited to try it out again and see where it goes from here.
The agenda of this first episode is pretty straightforward. I'm going to speak about the ultimate
purpose of this podcast. I'll then take a few minutes to talk about my own background. And then
we're going to dive into the meat of this episode and discuss how to get out of a slump.
* * *
[01:14] As I said, before we get into the heart of this episode, I'm going to briefly speak about
why I created this podcast in the first place.
So there are a couple things going on here. The main purpose is to help people fight fear, to
help them become more bold in their lives, and to help them live closer to the life that they
envision. What I've noticed so far in my professional career is that there's often a gap between
expectations and reality. And so I want to deliver insights and advice to help people decrease
that gap, whether that gap’s related to your career, personal life or anything else. So I'm going
to emphasize actionable steps in every episode. There are so many podcasts and business
books out there that say things like “take risks” or “live life to the fullest”—all of these
inspirational quotes, I think they're great. The message overall is great. But the actual follow
through is a separate question and something that a lot of people struggle with.
So beyond leaving your job or any drastic action like that, I wanted to create this podcast to help
people become a little more bold and a little more accepting of risk in their lives. I'm not
necessarily saying that you should leave your job. But I'm just hoping that you can expand your
comfort zone in your day-to-day life—no matter how small or scary the first steps are. That's
really the ultimate goal of all this. It's all about action. As you'll hear throughout all these
episodes, I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, reading books, and internet articles, and
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just taking a lot of time to dream about the life that I wanted to live. Now, in retrospect, this was
time that I could have used to take action instead of dreaming. So I want you to learn from my
mistakes. And also to learn from some of the greats out there and take action, no matter how
small it is.
As I've said and alluded to, I'm going to talk about my personal journey. I'll get to the specifics in
a second. But the bottom line is that I quit my corporate job as an attorney at a big corporate law
firm to try starting a startup. There are a lot of people in the legal field that are dissatisfied with
their jobs and want to try something new. And so I'm super lucky that I have an opportunity to do
this right now. So I want to document my experiences—both the good and the bad. This
podcast will occasionally speak about what I'm experiencing, the challenges that I'm facing (the
highs and lows), and really how I'm transitioning from corporate life to life as an entrepreneur.
Now, I may ultimately succeed or may go down in flames. I'm not entirely sure. But I wanted to
document my experience for my own selfish reasons and for others who might be interested in
trying to do what I'm doing now.
So now let's talk about a typical episode. A typical episode will feature some commentary, like I
said, on my journey to creating a startup. It will have a central segment on a topic of the day,
whether that's today's topic of how to break out of a slump, other examples are fighting fear,
meeting new people, and basically other topics that will help you get out of your comfort zone
and become more bold in your life. I'm also planning on having episodes containing reviews of
books that I found particularly insightful. But this is all an experiment, so I'm going to adapt and
see what you, the listeners, like the most.
That's a little bit about the podcast itself. So now I'm going to spend a few minutes to talk about
my own background.
* * *
[04:24] So I'm going to spend one or two minutes talking about my background and I'll allude to
prior experiences in future episodes. I'm originally from the south suburbs of
Chicago—Frankfort, Illinois, to be exact. As a kid, I loved sports, both watching and playing
sports. I was, and continue to be, a big Chicago White Sox fan. And I used to play a lot of
baseball and tennis. After spending my childhood in Illinois, I went to the University of Michigan
to study political science.
Michigan was a great experience. I made some terrific friends and joined one of the school’s
newspapers—The Michigan Review. And I eventually became editor-in-chief. I covered news on
the Michigan campus and beyond. And as I alluded to earlier, I started a podcast there and
interviewed people like Senator Joe Lieberman and Bob Lutz from General Motors.
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I graduated college in 2010. And then I actually moved to Egypt for a couple months to learn
Arabic through the State Department's Critical Language Scholarship Program. I absolutely
loved living in Egypt. It was a fascinating place and I was there several months before the
revolution, which was interesting.
After summer 2010, I moved back to the U.S. and then began working in media. I worked in the
cable news business in New York City for about nine months before I decided to go to law
school in Philadelphia. So I attended Penn Law School in September 2011. Penn Law was a
great, yet challenging experience and it gave me a solid foundation for the challenges of my
legal career and beyond. So after three years, I graduated with my JD and a certificate in
management from the Wharton School. I then moved from Philly back to New York City, took
the bar exam, and then began work as a litigation associate at Baker & McKenzie, which is one
of the so-called Big Law firms. I practiced for about two-and-a-half years before deciding to
strike it on my own and start a company. I'm working on the foundation now, and will update you
as I make progress. And as a separate point, if you're thinking about law school, I blog at
decidingonlawschool.com. I also write on Quora and Medium.
So that's a little bit about me. I'll be constantly referencing my professional and personal
background in this podcast. Now with that introduction out of the way, let's get to the heart of the
episode.
* * *
[06:33] As I said, I'm going to focus on one main topic per episode. And for this first episode, I'm
going to talk about something that's affected so many people, including me. That's the feeling
that you're stuck in a rut or slump and that you don't really know how to get out.
Now, before I say anything, I want to admit that this is a first-world problem. I know this and all
of this is relative. It’s 2017 and I understand there are many more important problems in the
world and that we should be working to solve them. A lot of good people are and I really
commend them for that. That said, we all face challenges or issues in our lives that we want to
solve. There's nothing wrong with wanting to solve those problems. With that as a baseline, I’m
mostly going to be focusing on this question of slumps or ruts as it relates to your career.
If you feel like you're in a rut, you're far from alone. As I was completing research for this
episode, I came across some statistics that seemed pretty startling to me. The first poll that I
saw was the latest Harris Poll Happiness Index from 2016 and it showed that fewer than one in
three Americans considers themselves very happy. Now Gallup, the polling company, has a
daily poll on whether employees feel engaged at work. And the latest poll from April 2017
showed about 30% of respondents claim that they're engaged employees. And Gallup defines
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“engaged” meaning those who are involved with, enthusiastic about, and committed to their
work and workplace. So 70% of respondents are not engaged.
It's interesting to think about some of these poll results. There is clearly a problem here. People
are living lives that they don't necessarily want to live. Now, not everyone is going to be entirely
happy with life. I think that's a given. But these numbers are lower than normal. The question is
why.
It's tough to answer this question. I do think technology does play a part since employees
always have to be available. We all have email, we all have work phones. But there also may be
some shifting expectations. And for this, I think of Millennials who make their voices known that
work isn't just about money, it's about fulfillment.
But I'd also argue that career unhappiness in general is caused by a couple other things like
lack of progress and expectations not meeting reality. All of us have dreams and things that we
work towards. When I was little, I wanted to become a baseball player for the White Sox. As I
got older, I became more interested in politics. And now I want to start a business. But things do
get in the way, whether that's something in your personal life or other life events. It's really easy
to fall into a routine and get consumed with day-to-day stresses. And this is really the danger of
inertia. As you know, the general idea of inertia is that objects in motion tend to stay in motion.
And I think that inertia leads people to sleepwalk their way through life. I was guilty of this. I plan
on writing a post on this on Medium. I think it's a topic that affects a lot of people.
And so inertia can be good or bad. It just depends on the behavior that's currently going on. I
think it can be good if you have developed systems in place to promote positive behaviors—like
a daily workout routine. Habit takes over and it takes some effort to break out of that routine and
forego working out for example. Usually, though, inertia is keeping you in a spot that you don't
necessarily want to be in.If you really sit down and analyze your day, you generally take the
same route to work, you do relatively the same tasks every day, you eat the same thing for
lunch, have the same conversations with colleagues, you go home, you watch TV, you get on
the internet or social media, and then you go to sleep. And then you may hang out with friends
on the weekends, go to bars, maybe take a couple vacations per year, and occasionally meet
up with family and be with them for the holidays.
We all develop habits because it's just an easier way to live life. But I think the real problem
comes from we want a different life for ourselves, but the comfort and familiarity with our habits
makes it increasingly difficult to break free from inertia. Now, sometimes you're able to
recognize this and sometimes you're not. However, the sooner you recognize it, the more
valuable it'll be. You'll just need to be brave and take action.
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[10:45] Now to provide some more color on these general principles, I wanted to highlight a
couple case studies of people who have been in slumps and who have broken out of them. For
this first case study, I want to talk about Tony Hsieh. Tony is a serial entrepreneur, the CEO of
Zappos, and he was the founder of the Downtown Project in Las Vegas, which was a
multi-million dollar effort to bring startups and other small businesses to revitalize the core of
downtown Vegas. If you want to know more about Tony, I recommend you read Delivering
Happiness, which is his autobiography and the story of how he scaled Zappos.
So Tony grew up a curious child, and he tried quirky activities, like trying to sell worms from his
worm farm to selling junk he could find in his family and neighbors’ garages. When he was a kid,
he even used a tape recorder to trick his mother into thinking he was practicing the violin, while
he was actually doing other things he enjoyed. Tony eventually attended Harvard College. And
while there, he became interested in this thing called the World Wide Web. And he began
looking for jobs during his senior year of college. In the end, he found a job at Oracle.
He describes his thinking in Delivering Happiness. He says, “My goal was to find a high-paying
job. I didn't really care what my specific job function was, what company I worked for, what the
culture of the company was like, or where where I ended up living, I just wanted a job that paid
well and didn't seem like too much work.”
And I think that many people fall into this trap. They chase money over purpose. I did this to
some extent as well and I'll describe this in a few moments. Anyway, back to Tony. He felt like
he succeeded by getting this high paying job at Oracle. But that said, he hadn't done much
research on what he would be doing except that he was supposed to be a software engineer.
When he learned his responsibilities, he found a way to hack his schedule, so that he’d only
have to do an hour or two of work per day. He did this for a while, and him and one of his close
friends from Harvard in his Oracle training class found the job to be simply okay, and not too
exciting. They weren't feeling stimulated by their jobs and they knew they had to do something
to combat their boredom. They really felt like they were in a rut,
So they decided to act and to start side projects by building websites for other companies. Their
company was called Internet Marketing Solutions. And eventually, they found their first real
paying customer. With that first customer in hand, they felt like they could quit their boring and
unfulfilling jobs at Oracle to run the business full-time. So they did that. They eventually quit, but
then focused on growing a new side business called Link Exchange, and they eventually sold
Link Exchange for $265 million. That was certainly a nice way to get out of a slump and Tony's
career at Oracle.
The bottom line is that he took action to get out of a rut and change up his routine by launching
experiments on the side. So by taking action and leveraging his intelligence, talent and luck, he
eventually became massively successful.
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[13:35] For another case study. I want to talk about Hugh Hefner. Yes, that Hugh Hefner.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Playboy and its mission, the early years of
Hugh Hefner were certainly interesting. He was born in Chicago and grew up in a Methodist
family and spent two years in the Army after World War Two. And then after serving the Army,
he attended the University of Illinois under the GI Bill. He worked at several companies as a
copywriter, including Esquire magazine, and then ironically landed at a children's magazine
called Children's Activities.
He married his first real girlfriend, had two children and was basically settling down his personal
life. He was 26-years-old, married, but unhappy. Life wasn't really turning out the way he
expected. He was going to work at a job he didn't necessarily enjoy day-after-day, and this was
taking a toll on him. One day, he went to a bridge in Chicago, and he explained to reporters that
he thought to himself: “Is that all there is? Is my life going to be nothing more than a repeat of
my parents’ life?”
Many people have these thoughts, but he made a conscious decision to act and change his
direction. He convinced his family and friends to lend him some money and then took out a bank
loan against his furniture and started putting together ideas at night in his apartment. So after
acquiring an Arthur Conan Doyle story and a picture of a young actress named Marilyn Monroe,
he started this magazine called Stag Party, which eventually became Playboy.
That moment of reflection on the bridge in Chicago shook him from his rut. It made him realize
that he needed to take action. So, like Tony, what started as an experiment turned into a
groundbreaking magazine and lifestyle brand. And it changed Hefner's life in the process. As an
aside, if you're interested in Hefner's life and how he built Playboy, there's a new series on
Amazon. I haven't yet seen it, but I'm sure it's quite interesting.
[15:21] So with the last case study, I'm going to talk about my experience for a bit and how I
broke out of a rut. As I said earlier, I worked at a large corporate law firm in New York for
two-and-a-half years. It was a tremendous opportunity and I'm really grateful to have had it. The
work was challenging and I worked with some really intelligent people. And the compensation
was great. But nevertheless, I was reflecting on my life and felt like I needed to take a risk. I
needed to get out of my shell and take ownership.
So I knew I wanted to take a risk and Jeff Bezos’s “regret minimization framework” came to
mind. This is the idea that you project yourself into the future and you're laying in your deathbed
and you ask yourself if you would have regretted not taking some action, with the general idea
being to minimize your ultimate regrets. So I felt this, but I also felt fear and the power of risk
aversion. Having said that, I knew I was young and had an opportunity to take a sabbatical and
try different things.
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Now, as I said in the beginning, this is definitely a first-world problem. And I know I was
extremely lucky to have my job and have the choice to leave. But for those who are very career
driven, dissatisfaction with your career can take a heavy mental toll, and it can really affect other
parts of your life. It can even affect your relationships and those who care most about you. So I
had to jar myself out of my inertia, and in a couple minutes, I'll share some strategies that
worked for me. I'm still working on this and I can't say that I'm an expert. But I was able to
identify the problem and take little steps—like working on side projects—to lessen my risk
aversion. I eventually had to take a large step and leave my job, but I experimented beforehand.
[16:56] So with this background and case studies in mind, I want to spend some some time
focusing on actionable insights so that you can identify a slump and act to snap out of it.
As I've been saying, this idea of actionable insights is an emphasis of my podcast. Instead of
just describing how people did things like breaking out of a slump, I want to give you some ideas
that you can apply to your own life. As a starting point, before you can do anything, I really
suggest that you identify whether you're actually in a rut or slump. It can be easy to identify, but
it also may be more difficult than you expect. So here are some questions to ask yourself:
● Do your days seem to blend together?
● Is it really difficult to see how today and yesterday are different than days several weeks
ago?
● Does work not really interest you anymore?
● Did you used to be excited about your job, but now you seem to be just going through
the motions or trying to leave right on time or as early as possible?
● Are you trying to avoid people at work?
● Are you feeling off but can't really explain it?
● Are you feeling burnt out or tired all the time?
● And have you ever felt really excited or happy about things for a while?
I also think that you should ask yourself whether you think you're on track to achieve your goals.
So some questions to ask are: “Where do you want to be?” And “Do you think there any large
barriers from you reaching those goals?”
I'd really suggest you take some time to think about these questions and, importantly, to write
down the answers. Put your pen to paper and think about whether you're where you want to be,
and if you're not, whether you see any path to getting to your destination.
[18:29] So with reflection completed, I'd suggest thinking about your routine. Ask yourself: “How
can I mix it up?” You may need more balance in your life besides focusing on work, meals, TV,
social media, and sleep. This is important for people who work long hours and are in demanding
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jobs. As part of my actionable insights, I'm going to suggest a couple things. Frst, joining a club.
Second, attending a networking event not in your industry. Third, working on side projects and
side hustles. Fourth, taking on more responsibility at work. And fifth, leveraging the power of
inspiration.
[19:05] So first, I'm going to talk about joining a club. This is one of the best things you can do
to escape a rut. And this applies whether it helps your career or not. I really suggest following
your passion and going to clubs that interest you. For me, I attended Toastmasters meetings in
Philadelphia and New York. For those of you that don't know, Toastmasters is an organization
that helps its members improve their public speaking skills in a positive and supportive
environment. Besides joining a club, I also suggest joining a sport in a recreational league.
Regardless of whether you think you're talented or not, it's a great way to meet people. It's also
helpful to get out of your building and exercise, and doing that in a group will make it much more
enjoyable.
I also think it's helpful to go to networking events that are not in your industry. It's important and
pretty cool to talk with people in different industries. Besides meeting new friends, you can get
new ideas which can actually help you in your current job. So when I was at my law firm, I
attended several tech meetups in New York City. I enjoyed meeting people that could give me a
different perspective. This is also helpful if you want to make a career change.And who knows:
you may meet some people that could provide some interesting opportunities down the road.
There's also the value of side projects and side hustles. It's a great way to pursue your passion,
make some cash on the side, and perhaps transition out of your job if your side project grows.
This goes back to Tony Hsieh’s idea of fooling around with projects while working at Oracle.
Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, also worked on this idea on the side while selling fax
machines door-to-door (and has happened for five years). Ultimately, side projects may open up
doors that you may have never envisioned.
Another tactic to break out of a slump is perhaps taking on more responsibility at work. So if
you're bored at work and doing the same thing day after day, you may want to see if you can
take on a project in a different area. Can you somehow ask to expand your role to take on tasks
that seem more interesting to you? It's a possibility. If this doesn't sound that interesting, maybe
your job isn't right for you, and you may want to consider other options.
Underscoring all of these tactics is the power of inspiration. I think it's really important to think
about your goals, the people that inspire you, your heroes, and stories that inspire you. You may
even want to find associated images of your goals and post those images around your
apartment or house so that you're reminded of them every day. You can also get yourself fired
up by watching motivational videos on YouTube or any other site. I really like watching Navy
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SEAL BUD/S training documentaries. All of this stuff can really help you get fired up to act and
break out of your slump.
[21:49] So after you've considered whether you’re in a slump and considered ways of breaking
up your routine, you'll need to take action (and this is the most important part). It's really easy to
say that you're going to take action and change your routine now. But the question is whether
you're actually going to do it.
A good number of you won't. I personally dare you to do it. Speaking for myself, I was super
slow in breaking out of my rut. It took me awhile to change things up, but when I did, I could tell
that I felt much happier. Execution means everything here. Sometimes you need to just jar
yourself out of your slump. I'd suggest trying mini experiments to change up your routine to see
if it helps. Baby steps work here. You don't need to take any drastic action immediately. If you're
too paralyzed or too ambivalent, you may need to surprise or scare yourself. I'm going to have
an episode on fighting fear so stay tuned for that. It's something that I've struggled with for a
long time, but I'm slowly escaping my shell.
[22:48] Now, even if you have other responsibilities—whether you're married, have a family, or
are taking care of a sick family member, whatever it is—you can still do this. It's not really a
matter of money or resources. It's just a matter of choice and taking a slight risk every day. If
you're in a big rut, though, you may need to take drastic action. You may have to consider
quitting your job or pursuing other opportunities. Again, I'll have an entirely different episode on
this.
Finally, another way to maximize the possibility of action is through accountability. By having
other people understand your goals and support you, you'll increase the chances that you can
actually change things up. Now, critically, I'd suggest you surround yourself with positive people.
You don't want a negative person dragging you down and keeping you in a rut. As another idea,
you may want to form your own mastermind group. This is a concept from Napoleon Hill’s Think
and Grow Rich. A mastermind group is a group of smart people that get together and discuss
their goals and how best to accomplish them. So I’d maybe suggest finding friends to create one
of these groups. You may want to hold regular meetings where you can encourage each other
and help each other out.
Another thing you can do is hire a career coach. Before leaving my job, I hired a career coach in
New York City named Devin Martin. He has been vital in helping me break out of my routine and
to help me overcome my general sense of risk aversion. And finally, you can contact me.
Whatever your current situation is, whatever slump you want to break out of, I can hold you
accountable. Tweet at me (my twitter handle is @A-P-A-S-C-A-R, @apascar, or email me at
adam@thepowerofbold.com.
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Ultimately, regardless of whether you feel like you're in a slump or not, I suggest you do this
tonight. Sit down, think about your average day, whether there is much variation, whether you're
on track to achieve your career goals, and whether you're excited about the future. If you're not,
and feel like you're in a slump, you need to change things up. Think about attending other
networking events or even joining a club, starting a side project, perhaps taking on even more
work, and consulting the things that inspire you the most. And then most critically, you need to
take action. Make a conscious decision to change things up and have some accountability by
having others help you. By taking time to reflect, developing a plan, and, again, taking action,
you can be in a better position to break out of your slump.
[25:17] So that's it for this episode, and I appreciate you tuning in and listening. As a reminder,
here are some of the key takeaways that we've learned. First, I've created this podcast to help
others take risks and live boldly, along with documenting my experience starting a company.
Second, everyone can get into a slump and inertia can lead you down some unsatisfying
roads—if you're unwilling to change your behavior. And third, luckily, you can break out of a
slump by, first, identifying whether you actually are in a slump, second, thinking about your
routine and how you can change it up, and third, taking action by engaging in little experiments
while simultaneously having others hold you accountable.
Connect with me on Twitter. My handle is @apascar, A-P-A-S-C-A-R. And if you liked the
episode, feel free to subscribe and tell your friends. That's it for this inaugural episode of The
Power Of Bold. See you next time.
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Episode One: How to Break Out of a Slump

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Episode One: How to Break Out of a Slump