4 Steps to Get Better at Your Job and Make WAY More Money (The Career Quadrant)

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about four steps to get better at your job and make way more money. How Andrew Can Help You: Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Go to joindeleteme.com/pfp20 for 20% off! Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Go to Acorns.com/pfp and start automating your investments and get a $5 bonus today! Links Mentioned in This Episode: How to Skyrocket Your Net Worth By Building an Amazing Network with Jordan Harbinger How to Invest In Yourself and Earn More (THIS YEAR!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  Longtime listeners know, one of the best ways to build wealth is to increase your income. And one way to do that is by starting a side hustle. And that's one reason why I absolutely love Whatnot. Now, my son and I, we love collecting sports cards. And we've used Whatnot to buy and sell cards. It's been a really fun way to enjoy something we love together. Now, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where people sell everything from sports cards to clothing, electronics, and collectibles. And what's really cool about it is you can turn something you're passionate about into a business. And you could do it right from your phone. You don't even need a storefront or a website. So whether you're looking to make some extra money or find great deals on your next shopping trip, check out Whatnot.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Search Whatnot, that's W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI website builder.

• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

  I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch. Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account, with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, four steps to get better at your job and make way more money. We're going to be talking about the career quadrant.

• 2:26Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking about four steps to get better at your job and make way more money. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join that Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney.co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And please, if you're getting value out of the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now, if you want to kind of visually see what we're talking about here,

• 3:06Andrew Giancola?

  you can follow us on YouTube. You just search my name, Andrew Giancola, on YouTube and you will find us there. And we have our outlines there as well. Really, really valuable stuff on YouTube. Now, today, I'm going to teach you a framework to get better at your job. And this is something I think most people need to learn how to do. This is a very specific skill. And I want to show you how to do this systematically. See, what a lot of people do is they say, hey, I want to get better at my job. And really, a lot of times, maybe they try a little harder, or they have a couple of conversations with their boss, and they feel like they're not getting ahead. But today, what I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce you to something I like to call the Career Quadrant. And what the Career Quadrant is, it's a systematic way to achieve your goals and to achieve your

• 3:50Andrew Giancola?

  career goals really, really fast. And if you're watching on YouTube, we're going to put this on the screen, a visual of the Career Quadrant. But the way that it operates is we're going to talk about goals and how to set up goals very specifically for your career. Then we're going to talk about aligning those goals. So aligning those goals means that you're either going to have a conversation with your boss, or you're going to align those goals properly with whatever you want your outcome to be. If you want to get promoted, fantastic. If you want to make more money, amazing. If you want more career flexibility, unbelievable. But there's so many different ways that we can align these goals that we're going to talk through how to align those goals. Third, Career capital. We're going to be talking about the concept of career capital.

• 4:31Andrew Giancola?

  And if you've never heard of career capital, it is going to unlock a lot of possibilities for you. And then lastly, I'm going to show you how to execute all of this put together. Now, a lot of you have heard us talking about our system on how to negotiate your salary. And what we talk about in the salary negotiation process is meeting with your boss. And once you meet with your boss, you have to do all of these various things in order to make sure that you can get that promotion or get that raise. These are the things in between that we want you to be doing this. So this is going to help you set up your goals prior to that meeting with your boss. And this is going to help you after that meeting with your boss actually get this stuff done so that you can make way more money. People who follow this exact system, I promise you, you're going to be making way more money in the long run if you go through with this.

• 5:16Andrew Giancola?

  Now, this is not something that is easy, but it is very well worth it. Even if you get a three to 5% raise every single year, you're going to be making over a million dollars over the course of your career more than somebody who does not do this kind of stuff. And so I want you taking and spending your time and investing your time on growing your career because you're going to make more money and you can take that income and put it towards wealth building activities, or you could put it towards things that you value, just like we talked about in the last episode. So this is going to be something I am really excited for you for because a lot of you are going to make a lot more money just by following the system. So without further ado, let's get into it.

• 5:56Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So number one is I want you to get out a Google Doc and I want you to map five key areas out. I want you to think through how you're going to set up your goals for your career. People who do not set up goals for their career are just going to blindly keep going throughout life and they're really not going to make much more money because they have no systematic way to achieve specific goals. Now, if you've never taken our course, Master Your Money Goals, it's a $99 course, but it teaches you how to systematically set and achieve goals. And what I'm going to talk about here, because this is a big thing you need to be doing, is how to kind of do that for your career specifically. So I want you to do this over the course of five years, three years and one year. And what we're going to be talking about today is your one-year goal.

• 6:38Andrew Giancola?

  And how you're going to systematically actually attack that one year goal so that you can make more money. Now, if you're listening in your office or if you're in your cubicle, you can literally do this right now if you wanted to. But I want you to take out a Google Doc and I want you to make five categories. I want you to label them A, B, C, D, and E. Now, in these categories is going to be five different areas within your career. A is going to be networking goals. How will you meet and network more in your industry? Now, networking is a very powerful tool. It's one of my big goals for 2025 is to make sure I am networking more. Because the more people that you meet specifically in your industry, the higher the probability of you making more money is. Because you can have opportunities open up and doors open up for better career options.

• 7:21Andrew Giancola?

  So I want you to network as much as you possibly can, and I want you to set up those networking goals. Two, or B, is your income goals. Your income goals are going to be something that I want you to make really realistic. They have to be realistic, but they also need to be stretched just a little bit. So how will you grow your income? And what do you need to do to impress your boss or a future employer to make sure that you actually hit that income goal? I want you to write that down and set up those goals that way. Number three is career capital goals. Now, we're going to dive into career capital a lot more later in this episode, but I want you to just set up some ideas. What skills do you need to master to grow your income? And there's going to be more to come on this.

• 8:04Andrew Giancola?

  D is leadership goals, because if you want to make more money, most likely you're going to have to be a leader, especially if you work in a nine to five company. You cannot be just a regular level employee and make really, really good money unless you're in very specific industries. Some industries, the employees actually end up making more than their managers do, but the employees are doing a lot more. So it kind of depends on your lifestyle design. And then E, this is a big one, and I'm going to have you answer a lot of things here, is what is holding you back? If you're stuck in a rut, if you feel like you've been in the same exact position that you've been in for a very long period of time, why are you stuck in that rut? And what you need to do is identify these areas to help you improve. So first, I want you to think through and kind of change your mindset if you are stuck. Or you're stagnant in your career.

• 8:49Andrew Giancola?

  Identify some patterns that are keeping you stuck. What are some things that are happening that are keeping you stuck? Do you procrastinate a lot? You know, if you actually do, are you someone who gets a specific project? And you put it off for a week because it's due in two weeks. And then the last week you are struggling and rushing to get through with it. Do you have a fear of failure? And that's what is holding you back from doing this. Do you have imposter syndrome? Or do you think you are someone who won't be able to lead a team? These are all the things that could be holding you back in your career and not allowing you to take more action. So I want you to identify patterns or habits that are keeping you stuck. Secondly, I want you to ask for performance reviews. Now, we're going to talk about meeting with your boss in a second. But I want you to ask performance reviews and have career development discussions with your managers regularly. You need to keep this conversation open.

• 9:33Andrew Giancola?

  I want them to know that A, every time that you walk in their office, you're going to bring them a ton of value. And B, the second reason why you would walk into their office is to talk about your career more so. You need to keep putting pressure and keep having that continuous conversation. Three is I want you, as you start to identify some of this stuff, to create an action plan to address some of those weaknesses. Because you haven't addressed those weaknesses yet, and you need to figure out how to leverage your strengths as well. What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? Let's attack those. Four, I want you to surround yourself with ambitious and motivated people. There are a ton of studies out there that have been done that the people who you surround yourself with have a massive impact on what you do day in and day out. If you look around and the people who are surrounding you are in dead end jobs,

• 10:18Andrew Giancola?

  or they have not built up any career success, I want you to find more friends and more people that you can network with who have had career success. Because if you're looking around, there's nothing wrong with having your old friends from high school or whatever else. But you also want to have that group of friends who is willing to push, who is willing to move forward and who is motivated to grow month in and month out. This is very, very important. If you've never done this before, you may be saying to yourself, how is that going to help me grow in my career? I promise you, there is a huge impact to who you surround yourself with. Spend more time with people who are motivated to grow in their career and it will rub off on you, I promise. And then lastly is regularly, I want you to be reflecting on your progress and Align with your long-term vision. When you're at your office, or when you're in your cubicle,

• 11:01Andrew Giancola?

  or when you're at your work, I want you to think through and kind of realign and reflect on your progress. Say, what did I do well this month? And what did I not do well this month? And how can I improve that? Do this monthly. This is very important. And that's going to be a huge way to overcome what is holding you back. So again, what I want you to do on that piece of paper, networking goals, income goals, career capital goals, leadership goals, and then figuring out what is holding you back and how you are going to overcome that. In that doc, I want you to do that. And if you can plan this out over a course of five years, three years, and one year, this will give you your five-year plan for your career. And this will also give you a plan where you can look three years ahead and say, hey, did I hit this goal? And start tracking some of this stuff. Now, if you want to really learn how to set goals, if you're very serious about

• 11:46Andrew Giancola?

  setting goals, join Master Your Money Goals. If you go to mastermoney.co/courses, it's going to show you exactly how to do this step by step in very specific ways. We set goals in 12-week increments, and it is going to make sure you stay on top of your goals. I promise you, it is the system that allowed me to go from living paycheck to paycheck to becoming a millionaire 10 years later, and then above and beyond after that. So I think this is really, really powerful stuff is setting those goals. So that is the first part of the quadrant, is getting your goals set up. Because if you don't have those goals set up, and then attaching systems to those goals, which is what we're going to talk about in a second, and aligning some of those systems to those goals, you will never really grow in your career. You're just going to grow very slowly, and it will not be as quickly as you want to. You've got to be motivated. You've got to be

• 12:29Andrew Giancola?

  disciplined day in and day out. Those are the people that get ahead. Now, let me tell you something. You're going to see a different side of me here, because for most people, I want to help them out as much as you possibly can. But also, when you're trying to grow in your career, this is a competition. And the competition out there is not very good. In fact, you should be able to stand out very easily. Why? Most people are looking for the easy way out. And right now, if you actually have discipline, and you focus on building a system that is going to help you grow in your career, I can guarantee that you will stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to everybody else in your department. If you want to lead that department, or you want to go above Beyond the department that you're currently in, you can definitely do that. Or if you're working in a blue collar job and you want to become manager,

• 13:14Andrew Giancola?

  or you want to become foreman, or whatever else you want to do, I believe that you can do that, but you have to make sure that you set up systematic ways to allow you to do that. It is a lot easier to become great in this day and age than it used to be. People don't know how to work hard. People want the easy way out. They want to get there the fastest way possible, and that just isn't going to happen. If you follow this process, I promise you, it's going to help you a ton. Now, the second part of this quadrant is aligning. You need to align these goals and align the big goals that you have, number one, with your boss, or number two, with the very specific outcome that you want. Now, number one is if you want to stay at the place that you are currently working, you have a nine to five, a career and a job that you love, you need to align some of these goals with your boss,

• 13:57Andrew Giancola?

  meaning you need to start having this communication with your boss. We're not setting up these goals willy nilly. We are setting them up to make sure that our plan aligns with the person who can fatten our paychecks, meaning the person who goes up to bat for you, that is going to go up to HR, that is going to go up to their superiors and say, hey, this person deserves a promotion, or this person needs to make more money. They are way too valuable for us to let them go and just let them keep earning at this specific potential. So those goals need to align with your boss. Now, if you are working at a place that you know long-term you do not want to be there, then we need to align our goals with what we want our outcome to be. So if you want to go work somewhere else in a different industry, or you want to go work somewhere else where you can have a higher level position,

• 14:41Andrew Giancola?

  then we need to have that conversation and making sure it aligns with what those specific things would want. Now, you may have heard us talk about how to negotiate your salary. We have a free ebook if you want to check it out. If you go to mastermoney.co/resources, you can go find our free ebook on how to ask for a raise. We have a very specific system on how to do that. And one of the big parts of that is making sure that you meet with your boss, at least at a bare minimum, six months prior to your performance review. Now, a lot of times, we talk about that performance review and the conversation that you need to have in that review, and we'll talk about that a little bit here, but we don't tell you after you have that conversation what to do. Which is what is coming next in this episode. And so what I want you to do is kind of think through and have a conversation with your boss about

• 15:24Andrew Giancola?

  A, your performance highlights, some of the big things that you have done over the course of the last year. Maybe you've increased efficiency by 15%. Maybe you've landed a major client. Maybe you've streamlined a bunch of processes. Maybe you've increased the bottom line and ensured that your company has more profitability. Talk about some of your big performance highlights, some of the things that you have done that have allowed your company to progress and make them a lot more money. If you can make 10x what your salary is, that is going to be a huge impact for a lot of companies. Two is I want you to talk about some of these goals that you have set up. Maybe you want to get a promotion. Maybe you want to make more money. You want to make 10K more next year, or you want to make 15% more next year, or you want to earn the ability to get a better title so that you can earn more later on.

• 16:09Andrew Giancola?

  Talk about these career development goals. And really what I want you to do is, hey, I aim to take on a leadership role in the next 12 months and increase my contributions, but I want to make X amount more if I do this. You know, how can we actually do this specifically? And I want you to give evidence of growth. So I want you to demonstrate your commitment to growth. I want you to talk about your plan on how you're going to execute some of this growth so that you can get feedback and make sure that you are on the right track. You want to keep continuously having this conversation. Now, when you're meeting with your boss, the reason why we're doing this is because we don't want to walk in during our performance review and say, hey, I want a promotion and I want to make more money. Most employers are going to say, well, what have you done? And if you're not prepared for that, then you're just surprising them.

• 16:51Andrew Giancola?

  And then they're surprising you back with a very specific question that you have not prepared for. Instead, you both can start to have this conversation very early on and then continue the process of making sure you both are on the same page and communicating with your superior so that you can earn more money. You're asking them, what do I need to do in order to earn more money? Here's what I think I need to do. Is this aligned with what you think I need to do to earn more money? This is the key concept here. Now, if you are nervous to have this conversation with your boss, some people are scared of their bosses. Maybe you are new to the corporate world, or you're new to whatever world you're in. You have a boss who is a little rough around the edges and Maybe they're not easy to talk to. Let me tell you that if you do not have this conversation, you are robbing yourself of millions of dollars over the course of your career.

• 17:36Andrew Giancola?

  And is this conversation, is this difficult conversation worth millions of dollars? I absolutely believe it is. And so I think most people need to make sure that they get over that introverted fear that they have. If you're an introvert, it is tough to have these conversations. But if you can start to practice and learn this skill of negotiation, I promise you this will result in multimillion dollar differences. Specifically, if you factor in opportunity costs with those dollars, holy guacamole, you're going to see a massive, massive difference. Now also, you want to have an understanding of what the business goals are for your specific company. So you can talk and have that conversation about, hey, what are some of the big initiatives for this year? And what have you heard from some of your superiors that have let you know, hey, these are some of the big goals that you have.

• 18:21Andrew Giancola?

  And then you guys can work on a proposed plan to help you get promoted and help you make more money. You can have this conversation demonstrating some of the skills and resources that you would need to succeed on some of these initiatives. And then I want you to have conversation about salary. I want you to actually talk about this upfront and say, hey, how can I earn more money? How can I get to this point in time? Do not say, I want to make 200 grand per year and everybody in your department makes 70. Do not way overshoot, or they will never, ever take you seriously and you will actually damage your reputation and the ability to negotiate in the future. Because they're going to say, hey, this person just really shoots for the moon. They are not even reasonable when we have these conversations. You want to make sure that in their mind, you're thinking about a collaboration and you're making this a collaboration in their mind. Do not overshoot.

• 19:06Andrew Giancola?

  Make sure you are aggressive, but make sure you are within the range of what your department needs to make and what someone in that level needs to make. So you can do research on Glassdoor. There's a bunch of other places that you can do research on. But I would highly recommend doing that research prior to having this conversation and benchmarking. And then lastly, is making sure you have questions prepped for clarity. And some of those things are like, what are the key skills or milestones that I need to achieve for the next role? Are there any gaps in my performance? Or is there a skill set I should address? Love this question because if you ask are there gaps in my performance or what skill sets should I address this will give you the exact things that you need to know because if they say ah no there's no gaps in your performance and there's no skill sets that you need to

• 19:50Andrew Giancola?

  address well guess what if you want to get to the next level you're already doing that thing and if they don't give it to you that's going to be a red flag and a leading indicator that you may need to look somewhere else now how does this company define success in this role is the last question that I want you to ask now you may have asked that in your interview but I want you to continuously ask this so they keep it top of mind that this person is very serious about getting to the next level and you can let them define success for you in this role because if you ask all three of those questions and you do all three of those things and I want you to write this down and you are doing the right things in order to make more money if they don't give you that raise going forward in the future and they say ah budget cuts or all this other stuff red flag red flag red flag now after you leave this conversation I want you to email a summary of what you both discussed now it's in writing and then lastly

• 20:35Andrew Giancola?

  you're going to continue to meet with your boss over the course of the next six months while you do some of the execution that we're going to talk about here in a second now if you do not have a nine to five that you are happy with right now you don't want to have this conversation with your current boss but you have goals and you have a desired outcome that you want to achieve in the future then you need to make sure that some of the next two steps that we talk about align with what that outcome is very very important stuff here and if you can network with somebody at a company that you actually want to work at even better than they can tell you how to kind of align some of your goals with some of the things that you are going to be working on ask someone at a company you want to work at hey what are some of the skill sets that the top level people have what are some things that they do and who are some of the people that they know that allowed them to get to that level I want you to start to ask some of

• 21:19Andrew Giancola?

  those conversations marketing yourself on LinkedIn and having conversations with people at networking events is going to be really really important to that bottom line so I want you to think about that your desired goals and your desired outcomes now let's get into number three which is career capital this is going to be a big one

• 21:38Andrew Giancola?

  So my relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now, I know it's really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals, and spending. So you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five-minute drill every single morning. I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow, and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks. I also love the AI weekly recap because it'll flag spending changes,

• 22:23Andrew Giancola?

  upcoming expenses, or shifts in my net worth before they become a problem. Instead of reacting after the fact, I can make adjustments early. It really feels like having a financial advisor in your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code PFP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code PFP. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 23:06Andrew Giancola?

  When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 23:47Andrew Giancola?

  We'll get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company.

• 24:30Andrew Giancola?

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• 25:17Speaker 01

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• 25:42Andrew Giancola?

  Next, we have career capital. And career capital is something that was originally introduced to me in Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, which we'll talk about in a second. But if you don't know what that is, it refers to your unique skills, your unique experiences and connections you accumulate over time that make you more valuable in the job market. Your entire goal, if you're going to work in a career, is you want to be as valuable as possible in the job market. You want to be constantly working on this because if you're constantly working on this, your income is going to exponentially grow year over year. And what we want to do is we want our income to compound over time, just like compound interest works in your investments. It will also work over the course of your career if you're developing the right connections,

• 26:24Andrew Giancola?

  if you are developing the right skills, and if you are developing the right experiences within your career path. I cannot stress this enough, how important career capital is, and it is one of the best concepts, if you've never been introduced to it, that I highly recommend you read Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, because this is where I was introduced to it originally when I was in the corporate world, and it absolutely changed my mind just on how to develop your skills. This is why you're stuck in your day job, because you do not have career capital. You may think you do. You may think you're great at specific things, but other people do not see it that way. And I want you to make sure that other people see it that way, so that you can progress quickly within your career and make so much more money.

• 27:07Andrew Giancola?

  We want that income to skyrocket over time, and the only way to do that is to make sure that people notice that you have very valuable career capital. Now, in Cal Newport's book, he kind of talks about career capital being rare and valuable skills, and he actually talks about making sure that you focus on things that are valuable instead of just your passions, which is really, really important. He also talks about, once you start to develop career capital, you need deliberate practice. You need time of which you're going to practice when it comes to career capital. This is focused, goal-oriented effort to improve on something specific. This is why we have our goals, is because we want to be very specific on the ways that we are going to achieve some of this stuff. Now, you can work on your passions, but they're going to come after mastering.

• 27:51Andrew Giancola?

  And I want you to avoid that passion trap. Just because you're passionate about something doesn't mean it's going to get you a job. I have friends out there who are trying to get jobs within areas that they are very passionate about, and they're having a very hard time. I have friends out there who have taken years off of their career timeline because they're trying to chase their passions, and it's just not working out. And so what I want you to do is look for value over passion when it comes to a lot of this stuff, especially for those of you out there who want to retire early. If you want to be part of the FIRE movement, or you want to become financially independent, passions are not what you want to be pursuing. Instead, you want to be optimizing and pursuing things that are going to help increase your income very, very quickly. Because once you increase your income very quickly, you can take those extra dollars, put them towards wealth building activities,

• 28:36Andrew Giancola?

  and really start to grow your capital that way. So how you build career capital, that's going to be the big question today. And I want you to learn step by step how to do it. Number one is you need to master rare and valuable skills. Everyone has very specific skill sets when it comes to career capital within your niche. Say, for example, you're in accounting. Well, most people understand how all the basics of Excel. What you need to do is figure out what are those rare and valuable skills that most people do not have. So one is I want you to make a list, and I want you to make a list of high value skills that are in your industry. If you don't know what they are, ask your boss when you're starting to have this conversation. Ask people within your department what they think some of the highest value skills for someone who wants to progress within this company are.

• 29:19Andrew Giancola?

  Ask other departments what they think some of the high value skills should be. Utilize a bunch of different tools to research this. Go to ChatGPT. Here's one of my favorite prompts. I work in this industry. I want you to be my coach in this industry that is going to help me progress and build career capital. Ask me a bunch of different questions about my career until you feel like you can coach me on how to develop my career capital. ChatGPT is going to ask you a bunch of questions. You answer those questions, and you might answer 10, 15 questions. Once you answer those questions, it is going to start coaching you on how to build your career capital. It's one of the most amazing prompts. I use this for all different types of things. And when you have this set up and you utilize ChatGPT in a coaching manner.

• 30:01Andrew Giancola?

  It's going to really be significant, some of the things that you can do. And so what I want you to do is figure out those high value skills, not the regular old skills everybody has. You probably have those skills already. I want you to find the high value skills. Focus on technical expertise. Focus on strategic thinking. Focus on leadership abilities. Those are things that everybody doesn't have. I want you to have those skills because that is going to ensure that you're going to make a lot, a lot more money. Another way to master rare and valuable skills is once you identify those skills, I want you to invest dollars, your hard earned, cold, hard cash into education and training. Because if you do not invest in this, you will never, ever really progress. You need to invest dollars into education and training. And I want you to focus on deliberate practice.

• 30:45Andrew Giancola?

  So Good They Can't Ignore You talks about deliberate practice. It has a whole section just going through this. And I think it's really, really important for most people. I deliberately would practice on various areas to build up career capital because I knew how valuable this time spent was. If you can focus 30 minutes a day or an hour a day, maybe it's three days a week for an hour, maybe it's twice a week for two hours. Whatever time you have, I want you to focus on spending time building career capital. It's going to make you more money. And if you care about your income and you want more income so that you can become financially independent, really, really important. Secondly, to build career capital, I want you to try to gain meaningful experience. Now, a lot of people are scared to take on meaningful experience because this means

• 31:29Andrew Giancola?

  they have to take on projects that are a lot harder. It's going to take a lot more time. It's going to put a lot more on their mind and they try to avoid hard at all costs. This, my friends, is to your advantage because you can take on the harder projects that are meaningful and are going to allow you to get that meaningful experience. So volunteer for high impact, visible work that tests and expands your capabilities. If you fail, guess what? At least you tried, but you need to go after and try to get some of those high impact projects. Now, one thing I love is the concept called job crafting, meaning that you are in a current role and you have specific responsibilities. But if you could start to craft additional responsibilities in that job that are higher Impact, this is going to make a huge, huge difference.

• 32:14Andrew Giancola?

  So find responsibilities that align with your career goals and try to add them to your job description. What does everybody say when some project comes up that may be either too difficult? Or they just do not want to do it. It's not part of my job description. It's not part of my job description, should not be in your vocabulary in a lot of different scenarios. Because that is one of the most frustrating things I could ever hear. So I have a lot of employees now. And within those employees, I have had people say this to me. They have said to me, well, that just isn't in my job description. If you want to set me off, you say something is not in your job description. The reason why is because we are a team and we are trying to focus on getting to the ultimate goal. Now, I know a lot of you are going to say, well, the corporation does not care about me.

• 32:58Andrew Giancola?

  Why should I care about them? It's not about them. It's about you. This is about you making more money long term. And if that corporation does not see that you are going the extra mile, taking on these big ticket responsibilities and not paying you more. There's your red flag right there. That's going to give you a lot of answers of what to do next. And so that's how I want you to look at this as you start to try to gain meaningful experience. Try to craft a job that is going to make you look different than everybody else in your department. Now explore some additional stretch assignments. If you can find stretch assignments with your boss, that is going to take you beyond your current expertise. And it's going to help you build new skills. I would do that as much as you possibly can. Are there ways to negotiate new deals within your department? Even though you don't do that yet. Are there ways to help your boss negotiate new deals?

• 33:44Andrew Giancola?

  Are there ways to get new contracts within your department? Are there ways to start selling different things in your department? Is there ways to increase efficiency? I want you to explore stretch assignments. It's going to make a big, big difference. So those are the first two phases. I want you to find rare and valuable skills. I want you to gain meaningful experience. Next, I want you to build a strong network. Networking unfortunately takes work. It's not something that you can sit back, relax and do. Now, we had an episode with Jordan Harbinger, if you haven't heard that one, where that's a more relaxed way to start networking. Where at least you're touching base with people every single day. And I love that idea. If you are really not going to network and you want to just take five minutes a day. Start to network that way. I love that idea. But for a lot of folks, I want you to try as hard as you possibly can to network. What are some great ways to network?

• 34:30Andrew Giancola?

  One is you can build a personal brand, meaning talking about things in your industry on a blog or starting a podcast or doing something on social media where you are talking about industry specific things that are going to help build your personal brand. That's naturally going to make people want to network with you and have an impact with you. So there's a bunch of examples of this, okay? But here is one example. I'm just going to use something in my world. Let's say, for example, you are, this is not even a corporate job. Maybe you're a pickleball coach. Well, if you're a pickleball coach, you should be making content about very specific pickleball techniques and ways to serve better, ways to hit better, ways to do all these different things in order to improve your specific brand. You know how many people are going to want to work with you? If you are the person that they see on social media constantly giving amazing tips, they're going to want to take private lessons with you.

• 35:15Andrew Giancola?

  They're going to want to do all these different things. Or let's say, for example, you're someone who works in sales. If you start to talk about sales techniques that are working for you, how to develop your sales techniques, things that you can do to develop a sales team and start to grow and go through that on social media, a lot of people are going to want to work with you. And in fact, you might get bigger job offers just from creating some specific content based around that. If you don't know how to start networking, start to become a magnet for people wanting to network with you. And that's what I really want you to think about today is becoming a magnet. Opportunities will show up. If people start following you and people start talking and having conversations with you, all of a sudden, your network is going to show up. So that's number one is try to become a magnet so people actually want to talk to you. Now, you may be saying to yourself, well, I'm an accountant.

• 35:59Andrew Giancola?

  That is an amazing place for you to be able to create content. Talk about different ways people can save taxes. Talk about different ways that you are saving corporate taxes. Talk about all these different things and you will be a magnet for people wanting to have conversations with you. Maybe you're saying, well, I'm an attorney. Well, if you're an attorney, there is a ton of different ways that you can create content. I have a friend who is an attorney. I'll give him a shout out. His name's Peter Tragos. He's the lawyer you know on YouTube. He has hundreds of thousands of followers. He's an attorney and he gets tons of clients just because he creates content. He became a magnet that people want to work with him. Think about what you are specifically. Doing. Maybe you work in procurement. Talk about efficiencies in procurement. I don't know what you're working in, but you need to think through how you can actually do that. Secondly, is go to conferences.

• 36:42Andrew Giancola?

  For years, I avoided conferences and I did not go to them because A, I'm introverted. I don't wanna, you know? Just don't want to do it. B, though, they just seem like a waste of time. And then I started to go to them and all of a sudden I met all of these amazing people that had a huge impact on my life. I cannot stress enough how impactful conferences can actually be. And so they have some costs upfront to them, but you will learn a lot and you will meet a lot of people. And so I really do think they are something that can be very, very valuable for a lot of folks. Next is join communities. If there are communities out there, maybe they're online communities surrounding what your career path is. Let's just keep using the accounting example. Let's say you're an accountant. Are there communities out there for corporate accountants? Are there communities out there for CPAs or certified public accountants?

• 37:27Andrew Giancola?

  Are there communities out there for folks who work in small business accounting? Join those groups and start having conversations with them. It is so powerful to be able to do that. I think it's going to be really, really cool and offer as much value as you possibly can. Try to connect people who are looking for very specific things. Connect them. They will remember you forever. Keep in contact with them. Continue to keep a CRM or a list together of who you're talking to, what you talked about. This may sound archaic, but it is also something that if you do it systematically, you can build up really, really powerful relationships. Next is I want you to seek out some mentors or role models if you can in your industry. Now, this is harder sometimes, but if you can find people who are above you or ahead of you, that you can have conversations with and ask them questions, almost give them a little interview, like,

• 38:13Andrew Giancola?

  how did you get to this point in time? Have you ever seen those people on social media? Who go up to entrepreneurs and they're like, hey, you got this fancy car. How'd you get this fancy car? And they give them an interview basically on like business and life and different ways to do that. That's a form of short, quick mentorship, but try to talk to as many people as possible who are in successful situations on how they got there. Take as many tips as you possibly can. Because if you can do that and you can learn from the best, it will have a massive impact on you. Honestly, listening to podcasts is a form Of mentorship. You're listening to somebody for an hour for 30 minutes at a time and you are learning a ton from them. They are teaching you all of the things that they learned throughout their life. Now, I want you to study the things that those people teach you and I want you to emulate some of the most successful things that they've ever done. Ask them, what is the best

• 38:57Andrew Giancola?

  thing you've ever done for your career? And when they give you that information, keep a list and start to follow and do all of those things. And then be really, really coachable. If somebody wants to coach you, they are way ahead of you in life. Listen to what they're saying and become coachable. Now, don't listen to bad advice. If you know something is really bad advice, maybe you should avoid that. But try to be as coachable as possible. Asking for feedback and be willing to adjust your approach is really, really powerful. In Proverbs, it says, "A wise man seeks counsel." And seeking counsel is one of the most powerful things that you could do. I try to do this as much as I possibly can. I go identify people who have done what I am looking to do, and I will call them up and just have a conversation. And I will ask them specific questions. Sometimes it's people I haven't talked to in a really long time, and I don't care, because A, it's a form of networking, and B, it's a way for you to get valuable information.

• 39:42Andrew Giancola?

  So just start calling people you know are successful in their career and asking them what they did, saying, "I want to progress in my career. What are some of the things that you have done that you think I could do too?" Next one is when it comes to developing career capital, I want you to cultivate a reputation of excellence. I want you to make sure that you deliver results. When you say you're going to do something, you deliver those results. You are reliable. You are early every single day, but you're also reliable by meeting deadlines and you're following through on your commitments, and you own your mistakes. Part of a reputation for excellence is that we're all going to make mistakes, but you need to own those mistakes and say, "Hey, my bad. That's on me. Here's what I'm going to do to fix it." Those are really powerful. Now, also, part of career

• 40:23Andrew Giancola?

  capital is soft skills. What are soft skills? These are things that really, if you look at it and you zoom out, if you're in the corporate world, it's corporate politics. We all hate that word. We all hate doing it. We all hate it. But it's learning, A, how to communicate and reading cues on people and articulate ideas clearly and persuasively. Okay? B, it's emotional intelligence, so developing empathy, self-awareness, and conflict resolution skills. If you are

• 40:51Andrew Giancola?

  Trying to grow in your career, you should not have any major conflicts whatsoever. You should not have beef with anybody in the company. Instead, you need to make sure that you can figure out how to figure out conflict resolution. If somebody sends you a mean email and copies your boss on there, figure out how to resolve it. And then leadership skills. Now, leadership skills are hard to develop if you're not leading anybody. But what you can start doing is you can start reading about leadership, understanding how leadership works, seeing if you can start to help out your team in very specific ways and lead by example. That's one thing that you can do right now is lead your team by example. If you're the most productive person on your team, you are leading by example. And so that is another thing that you can do. Now, if you are a leader, learning leadership skills is tough, man. It is one of those things that it comes with experience.

• 41:35Andrew Giancola?

  But as you start to progress, you will see the impact you can make on your team. So start testing and iterating very specific ways to motivate and to help your team grow. If you can help your team grow and learn more, you will be a great leader. Now, the next thing is when it comes to career capital, I want you to focus on strategic moves. So for example, early on in my career, a good friend of mine gave me a bunch of advice. He was about 10 to 15 years ahead of me in his career. I called him up and I started to ask questions. I did exactly what I'm telling you to do today. And he said, sometimes you gotta go backwards in corporate to go forwards, meaning that sometimes you have to take a small demotion or a small pay cut in order to get a massive promotion or massive pay cut. So you might have to maneuver around departments and you might have to do a couple of different things.

• 42:20Andrew Giancola?

  Sometimes that's what you have to do, but you gotta focus on strategic career moves. So you gotta align roles with your goals, align those roles with your goals, man. So you gotta align roles with your goals and you gotta think long term. So avoid jumping between jobs for short-term benefits. But for a lot of people, changing jobs will help you earn a lot more money. We have an entire episode talking about just the statistics behind that and how to change jobs to earn more money. But job hopping can earn you a lot more money. Sometimes it's not just staying in one location. It is job hopping is what's going to help you earn a lot more, actually. In fact, most people earn 15 to 20% more when they change companies. So it's something where loyalty is not rewarded anymore and job hopping is. So think about that as well. Using your career capital wisely.

• 43:03Andrew Giancola?

  Now, one big reason why you want to develop career capital is you want flexibility in your schedule and career capital allows you to get more work from home opportunities. It allows you to have more flexibility. If you've ever worked in a corporate job before, the people way, way up there, a lot of them get to come in a little later than you, they get to leave a little earlier, they get to go on work trips, they get to go on all these different retreats, they get to do more flexible things. Now, they work late at night and they do a lot more, but they are more flexible in terms of the way their schedule works. Or if you develop enough career capital, you can start your own business, a lot of other things that you can do that helps you transition into meaningful work and diversifies your opportunities. So I want you to think about that too, as you start to use your career capital. So those are the phases and the steps that I would look at to start developing career

• 43:48Andrew Giancola?

  capital. Very important, which is why we spent so much time on there. I think a lot of you will really benefit from just developing that career capital over time. Now, let's talk about how to execute this. One thing we need to do is if you have a nine to five career is you need to make sure you are protecting your personal information online. In fact, I was a victim of a phishing scam when I was in the corporate world where someone actually sent an email to our HR department pretending to be the CEO, asking for employee information. And the HR department actually sent over a bunch of employees' information to this scammer. And this scammer actually got my information with my social security and a bunch of other information and tried to use that to open up student loans and a bunch of other things.

• 44:31Andrew Giancola?

  Now, one thing I could have done to help prevent them from being able to attempt to open up student loans is removing my personal information online. And that is why I use a service now called Delete Me. And what Delete Me does is they go and remove your personal information from data brokers. If you Google your name or your address, your information is going to be all over the place. And Delete Me will go remove that personal information for you so you don't have to spend hours and hours doing it yourself. It is my favorite service by far, and I think you're going to love it as well. So if you go to joindelete.me.com/pfp20, there you'll be able to get a discount on Delete Me services and it is super affordable for the amount of time that you are going to be saving. So I absolutely love Delete Me.

• 45:13Andrew Giancola?

  I have been now using it for years and why we have partnered with them for years is because they are absolutely amazing. So go to joindelete.me.com/pfp and get your personal information removed. It's going to help protect your finances online. All right. So lastly, we're going to talk about how to execute this. This is the fourth part of the quadrant and it is the thing that you need to start taking action on. Your discipline when it comes to your career and your career goals is what is going to drive you to do this and your systems are what are going to allow you to actually accomplish some of this stuff. And so one is, once you get the agreed upon plan from your boss, you just start executing right away. I mean, immediately they need to see an impact and you just start producing progress reports on some of the things that you were working on to keep your goals top of mind with your boss. Your boss is super, super busy.

• 45:57Andrew Giancola?

  You need to be top of mind when it comes to doing this. Also, making sure that you track your progress is going to be really important. So keep a running record of successes, measurable outcomes, and lessons that you have also learned. Lead Project X, reducing delivery time by 20% and saving $15,000 is a quick example. And compare your progress against the goals discussed with your boss. So really, you're going to take that email that you followed up with on your boss and you are going to start to complete all those goals, one at a time, and you're going to track the progress of how you are completing those goals. This is going to be so powerful when you document this, guys. It's really one of those things that can make a massive, massive impact. Now, continue your skill development. Obviously, we just talked about a bunch of different ways to continue skill development.

• 46:40Andrew Giancola?

  I want you to put that into your calendar as to when you are going to be doing those every single week. And strengthening those relationships of your network are also going to be really important. So put in when you're going to be networking. So the networking things that you're going to be doing every week. Put in where you're going to be working on your soft skills, when you're going to be working and executing on some of your career goals and your career capital goals. I want that on your calendar every single week, otherwise you're never going to do it. And honestly, I think you'll see a massive difference when you do that. Now, as you start to do some of this stuff, I want you to evaluate and adjust. So every week, when you do, like I do in Master Your Money Goals, I talk about doing a Sunday planning session and I do that every single week. So if you do that same thing, I want you to evaluate and adjust your goals based on that Sunday planning session so that you can make sure that you're on track.

• 47:25Andrew Giancola?

  Now, I know this is something where, you can do this on Monday too, but I know this is something where it seems like a lot of work and it is. But if you want to make more money, you got to put the work in and you got to stay disciplined because other people are not willing to do it and they're not willing to put in that time and that effort and the energy that you are and I promise you if you just systematically do this day in and day out you will get ahead of everyone else so continuously reflecting is going to be really important and then thinking and planning ahead on those long-term goals is going to be really powerful so you need to plan that next step of what you need to be doing then when you meet with your boss six months down the line you've done all of these different things and you've made sure to take action on all the discussions that you've had you should have a very seamless conversation if you don't if they say oh well the reason is budget cuts we're not giving

• 48:10Andrew Giancola?

  promotions right now you can give them a little more time or you can decide hey do I want to start looking at another company because they're not going to be loyal to you if they are not giving you more for helping them earn more and so I want you to make sure that you are having those conversations as much as you possibly can because this is going to be the way that you can earn more money is communication communicate communicate communicate they cannot blame you if you're having this communication with them that you are leaving because they're not paying you more you had the conversation you achieve what they asked you to do and if they are not going to pay you more then it's time to move on listen I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you take action on some of this stuff this is some really really great stuff most people actually would charge you for this I'm trying to provide as much value as possible for free on these

• 48:55Andrew Giancola?

  podcast episodes to help you progress and make more money if you guys have any questions make sure that you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter if you got value out of this episode consider sharing it with a family member or a friend really cannot thank you guys enough for sharing these episodes and thank you again for being here we truly truly appreciate you being here and can't wait to see you on the next episode

• 49:31Speaker 02

  your sausage muffin with egg didn't change your receipt did the sausage muffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5 only at McDonald's for a limited time pricing participation may vary promotion pricing may be lower than meal