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Peter Sorgenfrei describes feeling trapped in a prestigious, high-paying job and how a mentor's advice to stop chasing titles and money changed his path. By 30, he chose a different direction and found a much happier work life.
Peter Sorgenfrei describes feeling trapped in a prestigious, high-paying job and how a mentor's advice to stop chasing titles and money changed his path. By 30, he chose a different direction and found a much happier work life.
In 2004, I was in prison. Not actual prison, but in work prison. I had a very prestigious job, big title, made lots of money, but I was miserable. And I spoke to a mentor at the time, and after asking me a couple of questions, he asked, so what does this feel like? And I said, it feels like I'm in prison. I'm sort of restrained. I don't have freedom of movement. I don't have freedom of choice. I have to do all these things. On somebody else's schedule. And he goes, there you go. Break free of that prison. Let go of focusing on titles, focusing on money, focusing on the prestige, and break out of that prison. And I did. I didn't do it immediately. Over the following years, I sort of remembered that as I was making choices about where to work and how to work or the kind of money I could be paid doing certain things. And eventually, as a young man, just before I turned 30, I had let go of that desire for titles, money, and prestige, and have since led the, the happiest work life I could imagine.
