Season 2025 Episode 1: Let Sean McMann teach you how to bust out of the corporate jungle!

Recruited right out of college to work at one of the largest data firms, Sean McMann embarked on an eight-year journey from new grad to consulting director. Privileged to see behind the curtain of some of the largest corporations today, he recognized the system was broken and quit at the height of his career, when working the least but making the most money he ever had, betting everything, including his money, reputation, and time, on trying to fix the problem of the corporate jungle. He shares his insights in his new book, Hacking the Corporate Jungle: How to Work Less, Make More and Actually Like Your Life. When he's not writing, researching, and speaking, McMann spends his time riding his bike, visiting art museums, snowboarding, and playing with his two young sons. 

Learn more at seanmcmann.com.

Music Note: NEW for 2025! Original music created for the podcast by the band "Rough Year," featuring Julian Calv on trimba (and including Dillion Spear and Brendan Talian). 

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Keep in touch!

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!
Check out my Facebook group -- The Storied Human.

The Storied Human is on YouTube now-- check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIHYKJ0fBDIF7hzWCu7b396GMJU-2qb7h

Have a story? DM me on instagram: lthompson_574
Drop me an email: thestoriedhuman@gmail.com

See all my links on Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/StoriedHuman/

Also see all episodes on my new website: https://www.podpage.com/the-storied-human-what-is-your-story/episodes/

Keep in touch!

Original music "Saturday Sway" by Brendan Talian (for all interviews before 2025)

Transcript

Unknown: 0:02

Sean, hello and welcome to the storied human I'm Lynne Thompson. My guest today is Sean McMahon. He started out, right out of college, recruited at one of the largest data firms. His future seemed bright, but eight years later, after seeing behind the curtain of some of the largest corporations today, he recognized that the system was broken. He quit at the height of his career, when working the least hours but making the most money he ever had, he bet everything, including his money, reputation and time, to try to fix the problem of the corporate jungle. He shares his insights in his new book, hacking the corporate jungle, how to work less, make more, and actually, like your life. Can't wait to dig into that. Welcome. Sean, thanks. Lynne, super excited to be here. So how can we hack our I mean, how did you even get to that point where you could write that book? I guess that's that's a good question. A lot of trial and error. But I think the underlying theme through it all was I was fearless, even though I was scared shitless. Most of the time I I'd ask the questions no one else seemed to have the courage to I walked up to the leader I wanted to meet and just introduced myself. I put myself in the room, I guess, so to speak. And I guess that that goes back to my parents and how they raised me and and some of my unique childhood experiences, which we can get into, you know, more later, if you'd like, I just love to hear about that. Like, how does, how did you become that person? Because that isn't everybody at work. Most people are too afraid to do the kinds of things you did. Yeah. So I guess it goes back to my my mom and dad. They're they're weird. I guess it's a way to say it in a really great way, like I great parents. I have no trauma, which I know is big for a lot of people right now, I have no real childhood trauma. My parents were great, but they also had some really weird nuances, like, instead of going on vacation, most years, we would renovate a part of our house or redo our front lawn. Or one year, like, when I was seven, I got my own hammer because we were putting on our own roof. And my little brother was five, and he had his own hammer too. Is like, looking back was just like, what? That's an insurance liability. Like, what were you doing? But they instilled in me from a very young age, you know, like, if you work hard enough and you pay attention to what's going on, you can really do anything. And so, for lack of a better term, it gave me, I would almost say, like, this sort of naivety that, you know, give it a shot, give it a swing. Like, the worst that can happen is, is somebody says no, or someone tells you to back off. But more times than not, it's, it's, it's the people who are gung ho, I guess. And I guess I learned throughout my life and throughout my childhood, like, if you volunteered to do something, even if you completely stunk at it, people would at least give you a shot. And then at that point, even if you didn't get to continue doing it, you at least got direct hands on direct one on one, feedback as to why you don't get to keep doing it. So yeah, go ahead. This is just so interesting to me because I just read an article that said, if kids do chores, if they do real work from the time they're young, they did the study on the ones that did chores had greater success later in life. And I was saying, I should have had my kids do more choice. Not that my kids aren't successful. They are, but that just makes sense to me that you were given this sort of sense of mastery and self esteem. I think that you can do things, and I love that, that they were weird in that great way. So they were unconventional, conventional. Yeah, very so here you are. You're a hot shot. They recruit you straight out of college. You know, you you got the the golden ticket, right? You're gonna go. You can see your future right in front of you. How did it change? I guess, from the I like, I always had this imposter syndrome, um, and from the very get go, I felt like I shouldn't have been let in the door, like I started in this new grad program and Aleta. And for those of you listening who don't know, like a lot of large corporations, have a similar program where they recruit, you know, class 10 to 20, sometimes 40 kids straight out of college to join the company. And in a lot of those programs, you get shuffled around, and you get to try little positions in every department to really see where you fit. And in my program, I started with 14, I guess, students, or, you know, 20 somethings. And there were only two prior that ever went through the program. And so we were the, really, the first, like, real program. And. The first day, we all sit down, and we all, like, talk about what we had done the last, you know, summer, this last summer, or what we've been up to the last year. And I had graduated, like, two months prior, and so, like, I think the biggest thing I had done was, you know, I might have cleaned my house and maybe went on like, a three a road trip or something with my fiance at the time. Like I wasn't, you know, and I went back to the old coffee shop I'd worked at through college, you know, make ends meet until the job started. And so I hadn't done really anything of note. And I remember I must have been last or second to last to go. And everyone had these incredible stories like, Oh yeah, you know, I just spent a year at sea, or, you know, I just finished up an internship at Google. Or, you know, my dad. My dad flew me to Paris, and I just spent the last three months, you know, in Paris, and it was like, you know, a couple of them had, like, last names that were very resonant, I would say, in the company, you know, like their dads or their uncles were, we all knew who they were, right? We knew their friends were. But for me, I was just like, how like my dad was, he'd tell you, you know, he was a truck driver his entire life, and my mom was a teacher. And so I was sitting there, like, listening to all these intros. Like, how did I get in? Like, what am I doing here? Yeah, I don't think I should be here. And and I think at one point, you know, because of this new grad program and the nature of it, we all had mentors, and the gal who interviewed me and let me in, and ultimately had had passed me to the people who had hired me on, I eventually sat down with her and was like, did you make a mistake? Like, I don't know if I put those kind of words, but I was like, why am I kind of here and, and, you know, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to be here. Like, please, don't, you know, kick me out. But why am I here? And I think that was the most telling and one of the most informative conversations I've really had about how sometimes market dynamics that you don't get taught about work. Because she essentially said, like, you worked all through college, which you can't say about, about any of your you know, your fellow new grads and you have have had the most work experience. And at that time, I'd already, like, ran a coffee shop as an assistant manager. I climbed my way up to shift supervisor at one of the Panera breads near me that I worked to add for three years, I'd been a delivery driver at a nearby, you know, Chinese restaurant that my neighbors owned and so it's like I worked all these, all these odd jobs, but I had worked, I think, my first job. I'd worked since I was 15. Wow, in my last two years of college, I took like, 18 semester credits, and I worked like almost 3028, to 30 hours a week. And so I was, I was always doing something. Okay, yeah, so she saw the what that indicates, like, that ability to, she already saw the record, how you work. Yeah, that's so cool. You know, I, I went to one of those, um, when my kids were looking for colleges and and you go to accepted students day or No, it wasn't that, I'm sorry. It was like, open, open house, and everybody's, like, interested, right? I think it was Gettysburg, which is pretty cool school. The guy got up and said, if you've been babysitting, like, maybe one of you has been babysitting, and you've been babysitting for like, seven or eight years, does that impress us? And and people like giving different answers, and he's like, that super impresses us, because people forget it's not the, you know, the like, it's not the elitism of the job or the level of the job. It's the responsibility, it's the ability to stay with something and and I just thought that was brilliant. You know, that that's how they look at things. It's like you were able to handle that responsibility of the the coffee shop, and the babysitter was able, you know, was trusted by the parents to handle the responsibility for children. It's a great indicator. So she shared that with you. I think that's great. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I've never thought about it in that, that sort of light. I guess I didn't have a lot of responsibility growing up, um, your parents took it for granted. Because I think you, you know, you had responsibility young, you got that hammer, and you're building things. And I just think it builds like that confidence and that trust in your abilities that not everybody has when they're young. I think some people get there, your parents almost gave you like an express lane to that, that level of um, express express lane. I'm going to tell them that next time I see him, I think they'll like saying, Yeah, you made me work, yeah, when I was seven, yeah, but I love that. No, it makes total sense. So did you feel better after you talked to her? Oh, I did. Yeah, good. And then she made me feel super better. And then my first mentor, who I actually write about in my first book, here she was, she was very similar, and she told me flat out, she was like, I was the one who wanted to hire you. And come to find out, I worked for three directors at this point in my first role, and out of the three, only one of them actually wanted to hire me. And she was the one who. Wanted to hire me, and I'll I'll never forget her. She, she was a true salesperson, which I think a lot of organizations have lost nowadays or really struggle to find. For those of you don't know, like true sales people, they're a different breed, but they bring in as much as they drive most people in an organization absolutely crazy. She had a skill set that that you really that companies pay through the nose for because she has done well. It's so impressive. I have a friend like that. Yeah, she could literally sell, you know how they say you could sell ice to the Eskimos, she could and, Oh, absolutely, and they wouldn't mind. She's, she's very sincere. It's like, very cool when you have those skills. So, yeah, so she fought for you, she fought for me, and I think it to this day she might have been one of the only geniuses i have ever worked for. And she was this tiny, blonde, small Jewish woman, and she always told you, like it was and but she was just a force, like she was so tiny. It was such a dichotomy, right? Because she was so tiny in physical stature, but she was such a force in the room. She was so intelligent. We get out of meetings, and she'd be like, how do you think that went? I'm like, well, they seem interested. I think we can sell them a contract. And she was like, no, they're not going to be interested for at least another six months. And she just knew that, I know, yeah, she changed, and she did it differently, and we get out of what you know most people, if you've worked in corporate at all, Lynne, I don't have you ever worked in corporate, okay, only in corporate. I I'm a technical writer, and I'm a the way I deal with not I'm not a good employee, so I'm a consultant. Okay, that's a good way to put it. That's, that's great advice for everyone. If you're a bad employee in corporate, everyone go into consulting. I just don't enjoy it. I'm not cut out for it. I'm more entrepreneurial. So this is how I deal with that. But anyway, what I thought of first when you said sales was how many times I work a lot in it, and I was thinking, how many times sales people promised stuff the developers down the line could not deliver. So there's that mismatch. Sometimes there's that contentious relationship with sales, yeah, promise the moon. You know, promise the moon. Yeah, she was, and I will say, my mentor, who I'm talking about, she was so great at things like that, like, we would almost promise the moon, and then she'd always, and I later found out this was just a tactic that she it was kind of a double edged sword. It was a tactic where I helped solve that exact problem of over promising and under delivering, that you're talking about Lynne, but then it also allowed us to charge more. And she'd say, well, we've never she was just flat out honest with clients, yeah, whenever that's great, yeah, yeah. She was just like, I don't think we can do that, but, you know, we'd love to let us get with the team and let you know. And then we talk to and there be like, Oh yeah, we could probably figure that out. It's gonna take longer, though. And she would go back to the client and be like, you know, here's here's the contract, but it's 2x what we quoted you. And they would sign the thing, and it was just, how did that happen? Like, she built that trust. They trusted her, right? Exactly. That's so cool. She was yeah for her, yeah. So as you went along, you're starting to see I, I did read in your description like you were the one that was often given the extra bonuses you were given, you know, more often than others, or a larger increase, you began to see that you were almost it sounded to me like a disrupter compared to people who were more afraid to say stuff. I would agree, yeah, and I think there was, there was to that point, I think disruptor sometimes has this like it's over glorified, or a negative connotation. You know what I mean, or sounds really sexy, and it's really not, because being a disrupter is sometimes being in the meeting where the boss is talking and stops talking. And everyone knows, okay, this is where we all leave the room and talk about it later. And I was the guy who was like, you know, actually, that doesn't I'm confused, you know, could you just play that back for me and so that, yeah, it's, it's so when we say disruptor, i You're totally right. Lynne and and I'm not disagreeing with you, I guess. What I'm trying to say is being a disruptor oftentimes, is just saying the thing you're scared, to going into the fear like, you know, and being the voice in the room of reason. And then, you know what I didn't realize when I was younger, and what I started finding as I started networking and talking to all these people, I'm naturally, you know, extroverted, and so I have naturally extroverted tendencies, and so I would naturally start to talk to people, and being that person in the room, you know, there's a fine line between driving people crazy and like just wanting to hear yourself talk, but if you can balance it well, you build up confidence and respect in other people, because they're like, Oh my gosh. He said the thing I didn't. I was too scared to. He said the thing I wanted to. And it kind of puts you in this place of being a natural leader without the title, and that's ultimately, I think, what sets you up for a really great foundation to eventually get the title. I was going to say as a contractor, somebody who's not a contractor. Yeah, I was the person who often said the things they wanted to say. So it was really cool, like I could just say, Well, what about. This, and they were, like, afraid to say it, and it's a wonderful place to be, and then they really are grateful, and they know they can count on you, and it's just a wonderful kind of trust thing. So you were that person, I totally agree, and exactly as it sounds like, your experience can speak to as well. It's like once, once you become that person, or once you are that person everyone else kind of gets inspired to be too, and then it just changes the culture. That's really how you change the cultures. And everybody's like, well, Sean's gonna say it. If I don't, I might as well say it, you know. And then everyone starts to get a little stronger and a little bit bolder, and before you know it, you're doing stuff on your team that you're proud about, and you're telling your family about it. Everyone's doing it, and it's that's, it's fun. And then work is a whole different kind of method. Yeah, and people know that you care enough to speak up. That's cool. Well, so, so you're that person, right? The years go by, you start to see stuff you're not real happy about. All of a sudden, you realize I'm working less hours than I worked before. I'm making more money than I've ever made. Most people would say, Hey, this is great. Like, what? What made you decide, nah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stay around for this. I guess it was a few, it was a few culminating things. I had two young boys at the time. My kids were three and one, and, you know, and I had the house and the marriage cars in the driveway, I had the dream, you know. I mean, the bank owned 80% of it, but, you know, on paper, it looked like I had the dream. And I thought it one day, I was sitting in my office or my boy's nursery, and I was thinking to myself, like, this is the dream. Why does it feel like a nightmare, you know, and then, like, if I, if I teach my kids like, this is okay, and this is how we're supposed to feel as men or as people, you know, I was like, then that I'm really not doing them any emotional, spiritual favors and, and so I guess, you know, I think COVID had a lot to do with it, but I Guess it really all came to a head when one of my old bosses left, and she was replaced with a new VP. And in talking with my old boss, kind of, on her exit interview, she said, Sean, you know, if you play your cards right, in 1520, maybe 30 years, you could run this place. And, you know, the place was a billion dollar company. It was an eight figure salary. We were talking about maybe nine figures like that was, you know, that's why I went to business school. It was like, that was the dream, yeah. And I just started thinking to myself, I was like, 30 years. Like, if it's a long time, like 30 exactly. I mean, not only is that a long time, but then what would I be doing? And, you know, when you're making the most and working the least, I think guilt enters the picture and and in addition to that boss telling me, you know, you'll be able to run this place, one day, I had another boss just say, Hey, you earned it. You've earned it. Just enjoy it. You know, have fun. Lay back, you know, get some massages. Like, relax. You know, you've you've earned this. You deserve it. And as I told you about my parents earlier, like they worked their asses off and never made like, I think I was 26 when I eclipsed my dad's annual paycheck, like when I started making more than my dad ever had, and he works for the same company for 30 plus years. And so that was tenureship and loyalty and everything. And so it like that just never jived with me. It was like, No, I know a lot of people who have worked in in areas and industries that really run a city. And I was, I was, you know, as COVID told us, like, my job is not essential. I was not essential. I should not be making that much money. And, and I realized that's a terrible feeling, yeah. That is Yeah. And so I think the guilt set in, and then, as my brain works, you know, when you start to feel overwhelmed, I guess you start to very intellectually and very logically look for a solution. And in looking for the solution, I realized I thought the corporations were a ticking Tampa. And I thought that for two reasons. I thought, you know, one, the current state of them is just unsustainable. It's gonna, you know, kill the planet if it continues. And then two, I thought, if I'm managing this company, you know, putting myself in leadership's position, if I'm managing a company like this, and I have these leaders who are working less and making the most, eventually, as the boss, boss, my job would probably be to outsource as much as possible to robotics or AI. And so by very definition, like, eventually, if I was running the place, my job would probably threaten my current role right now. And so it just, it kind of becomes, then you start to really see the house of cards for what it is. And you're like, Oh my gosh. Like, yeah, my job, one day, is going to be put my old self out of a job. And that's a Yeah. That gives you an existential crisis, I guess, but it also didn't sit right with you. Yeah, you saw it right with me? Yeah, you saw, yeah, you saw where it was going exactly. Well, especially, I mean, one thing I'm always arguing is, like, there you can't it's not sustainable with how much. CEOs make and that structure, and, you know, it's so much more than the lowest paid worker, and it's so much more than any other industrialized nation. It kind of bugs the, you know, what, out of me, but I think that's in the news right now, right with the USA healthcare CEO and, oh yeah, it's, yeah, I'm always talking about it. It's hard to go back, though, you know, once you hit that kind of crazy level, it's hard to convince people to go back. But my argument is always like, hey, you know, be wealthy. That's great, but, you know, this is not sustainable. How can you keep running a company where you're laying people off and giving the person who laid them off more and more money? So I can see what you must have been going through. It's a weird environment. Well said, well said, Yeah, wow, there's so much there. I want to talk about it and unpack. I don't I don't know what direction you want to take this, but no, I totally agree. I totally agree. Yeah. Just really, like, you know, hitting the points for me. So I really want to know is, what, how were you able to make that step away like I It all makes sense that you're you're thinking ahead, you're realizing where it might be going. You're not pleased with the you know that other people are saying to you, you know, it's fine. You earned it. Just stick with it. Relax, get a massage, but what really gave you the courage to step away, that's what we love to hear on the story of human is, when did that transformation happen, and how did you have that courage? Because that's hard. I'll have to think I like to say it was like one moment. You know, it often is, yeah, I mean, it felt like a build up. But let me think, I'm sure there was one moment, the one that comes to mind, and I would say, up to this point, I had already spent, you know, in a position of power, in a leadership position with my own team, I had already done quite a bit of work in not outsourcing my work, but giving it to others. Giving and determined management that we say right is giving responsibility to others so they can learn more. And so I already given a lot of, yeah, so I already given a lot of my responsibility to others, and they were doing well. And, you know, throughout COVID, I had already seen my entire team replaced, because everybody had, you know, there were a lot of people having epiphanies, and a lot of people changing their minds about what they wanted. And one of my buddies, you know, he came back from a long weekend and was just like, I'm moving to Spain, I'm going to grad school and I'm going to work for a cruise ship afterwards. And he's doing that, you know, he went to grad school right after COVID, and so there was a lot of change in the air. And I think through all that, I saw everyone was replaceable. And so the first, the herd, first hurdle I had was, I can't leave the team. I can't leave all these great people that I work for or work with, you know, that that wouldn't be fair to them. And then having to replace the team once over already I saw, you know, is as much as it can depress us that everyone's replaceable, including me. And so that meant, you know, I wasn't really insulting anyone if I left the right way and gave everyone ample time. And so the moment to answer your question, the moment that really struck me is I had really put all the ducks in a row. Everything was set up, and I was ready to go, and then I got stuck. You know, it's like that high dive moment. We're on the edge of the high dive. Your toes are over the water. Yeah. And I sat there, I think for months, I would love to tell you I had the courage to just go right away. And I think I sat there for months, and I was dating a gal at the time, and we were out on a walk. We went for like, regular walks because I wasn't working much, so this was like two hour walk on a Tuesday in the afternoon, right? And I had a one on one right before the walk with one of my team, one of my one of the folks who worked for me, and then I had a one on one after this walk. And so that was really all I had from like noon to five o'clock. I had two half an hour meetings, and that was really all I had to do all day. And so me and her, we went on a walk, and we were walking around this park I used to live next, next to, and she says, you know when you do this, because she knew, she knew my dream, she knew what I was talking about. She's like, you know, I'm gonna do this. And she goes, you know when you're gonna do this, when you do this, people are gonna think you're nuts, yeah. And there was, there was something about that that just like, it was like, I know that. Like, that's, that's why, you know, you know it sounds, it sounds, I guess, cold hearted, but that's why I had hired a great lawyer for my divorce. And like my ex wife and I, or my former wife and I had such an ironclad divorce, and like, everything was mutually agreed on, and we have everything in writing. Is because, like, I had known almost a year and a half, two years out, that when I did this, the first response from everyone around me was, Oh, my God, he's having a midlife crisis. And like my brother even joked about that, like you're in the middle of your midlife crisis. Let's not take your opinion too far. And it was like I knew, you know, I had all these build up moments where I knew what was gonna happen. And the minute she said that, it clicked for me, like, you know, that. You've prepped for it, you've done your thing. You know, you have all these contingencies, like you're ready, you it's time to go. And then, yeah, from there, I just, I waited for the right moment, and eventually the right moment came along where it was like, I just can't do this anymore. I have to go and and I guess the moment was, I was recently put on a major hotel chain account, and a couple times throughout my career, I flipped something like a relationship with sour a client was upset, and I had gone in and been like, okay, brass tacks. This sucks. Nobody's happy. I'm assigned to it now because I'm trying to fix it and I need everyone, you know, yeah, and it was another one of those accounts where I was brought into a major you know, everyone knows the brand. I won't, I won't say its name, but its name, but everyone knows the brand. It's a worldwide brand. And I was brought into that account to fix it, or at least fix our team's portion of it. And I was on it for about a week. And then when the managing VP asked me, like, how are you doing? How's it working with the team? You know, just trying to, like, catch speed of, like, when do you think we can do this? You know, trying to get my take I, you know, we were having a zoom like this, and I looked her straight in the eye, and I was like, Kelly, I can't do this. Like, I don't care anymore. Like, I'm like, I want to do a good job for you, but I don't care anymore. I can't do this for you, and it wouldn't be fair to you for me to stick around like I want you to know come Friday, you know, I'm I'm giving everybody my three weeks. I'm quitting, wow, yeah, but it is hard to fake caring. I mean, that's when you reach that point. You can't pretend to care. Yeah, no. And, well, you'd be surprised how many people in corporate America do. Yeah, they try, they try. But no. A friend of mine, I guess before that had also said, you know, there's something about keeping your dignity, and you have to make sure decisions you make in life, even if they're not always the most financially smart or sound, if you can respect yourself at the end of the day, you know you're doing something right. And so I guess those three moments together really created that, that leap off moment, and that's amazing. So did people think you were crazy? Um, you know, I waited three weeks until after, like, three weeks until my last day. So it was like, Yeah, my last day was the end of April, and it was three weeks into May, and I was finally at like, a brunch or something with my family, and I was about to get up and leave, and I remember being like, I should probably tell them I've been out of work now for three weeks, like, now's probably a good time. And so I was like, you know, floating the idea, like, hey, just to let you know, I quit, you know, months ago, and this is what I'm doing. I'm writing my first book, trying to fix this. And I don't necessarily know where it's leading, or you know how I'm gonna what the long term plan is. But this just, you know, following my intuition, this is what needs to happen now. And, yeah, I think the first my older brother, you know, are you having a midlife crisis? My mom was like, Oh God, Sean, like, I'm gonna worry about this. Do I need to worry? Are you okay? Like, do you need to talk to someone? And then my dad, he just, he was silent, and I'll never forget it. He's staring at me, and he's silent. He's to my right, you know, if you can imagine, and he, you know, at our family table. So he's at the head of the table, you know, this big rectangle, and he's staring at me. And finally, everyone's silent, noticing dad hasn't said anything. And then dad goes, I think you're stupid. I think you're really stupid. Oh no, giving up such a great job at such a great pay, like, you had worked, you know, all through school, for everything, for that, like, you know, and he kind of stopped there, and then he just got up, you know, frustrated. Got up, he went into his bedroom, I think, like, the like, are you okay? And, you know, then I'm not defending myself. But like, Yeah, I'm fine. Like, this is what I'm doing. I'm writing a book, you know, I already have 50,000 words, you know, like, you know, a year and a half and nine versions later, the thing is finally coming out on January 1, right? But then my dad comes back and he goes, You know, he's more flustered now, and he's just like, not that you're stupid. I think your decisions are stupid. I think they're impatient, and you're making rash decisions, and it's not what's best for your boys, and that is immediately where everyone goes next, right? Is like, how are you gonna pay boys? How are you gonna take care of your kids? Like, this is not, this is not okay, you know? And, and it's as weird as it sounds, but like my dad was very much a company man, working for the same company for 35 years. And although he liked, like, his general job, you know, he was the trucker, and he liked being on the road. He liked driving. Got to drive through the mountains every day like he liked it as much as he liked it. He didn't like the hours. There were so many things he didn't like about his life that, when he when he said I was stupid and I was probably on the wrong path, I took that as a sign that I was probably very much on the right path, or at least getting closer to what the right path was. I still couldn't tell you I found it. But yeah, people did not. Most people thought I was I was nuts. And, you know, it's funny, like when people would you behave or you. Act in a way that, as you said earlier, maybe I was acting bravely, which I still don't feel like. I just feel like, maybe, oh, I think it's courageous to break out of something. No, it's just very hard, right? I think it's courageous to make a change like that. But you know what quotation keeps floating through my mind is, if you do what everyone else does, you'll have what everyone else has, and you didn't want to have what everyone else had it, and the system seems like it could be tweaked to you. So you you took a step out, and that, to me, is brave and makes sense. No, I appreciate that. I like that courageous. Oh, I appreciate that a lot. Yeah, that you know that most people are not going to understand that, because that's not the majority. View, and most people are too afraid to make a big change like that. Yeah. But I think, I think you know, when you say that, all I with the book, though, the book will help people see, like, what you learned and how you can help, you know, and they can help them, and you can, they can make it better. So let's, let's talk about that. The book sounds amazing. I love that you sent it to me because I've been scanning it and it just, I can really relate to it, because I have been in the corporate world a long time. Yeah, and why don't you talk a little bit about what you share, because it's so cool. Like how to how we view work and its connection to our self worth, the 8020 rule, and how to fulfill your time effectively. These are things we need to know, sure, sure, I'd love to so my book, it really started in a meeting. I was joining my own team at this point, and I said, you know, they asked me. They knew I didn't have the kids that weekend. So my team asked me, like, you Sean, what you get up to this weekend? And I was like, Why start it? You know, just writing a book. Writing a book, and two of my youngest who I just recruited right out of college, I got, like, two or three college new grads every year on my team. They they stopped immediately. And they could have just been being very nice to the boss, you know, but they stopped immediately. And was like, we would read that book. And so initially, I think my first name of my book, someone asked me about this last week. I think the first name of my book, of my book was like the new grads guide to corporate America, or to climbing the ladder or something. It was like the new grads guide climbing the ladder. And it started out very much as, like, just a how to to free up your time, make more money and navigate corporate America and and so that's where you get the 8020 rule. That's where you get my rules for how to manage meetings. That's where I went to a bunch of email trainings when I was in corporate, and it was all about how to manage your email. Because I was working for three directors when I first started my career, where it was like there was so much work, you know, when you're when you're an underling, as anyone knows, or Grunt, oftentimes there's so much work being piled on at you, that if you don't figure out how to prioritize and do things in the right order, everyone's gonna say they're upset with you, and that's the worst thing when everyone's upset with you, who's above you as a grunt to be because it means you're probably not good at your work, even if it just means you're overwhelmed and people are giving you their own work, right? Yeah. So in a lot of my book, it was stuff that I learned, you know, I had problems. And then I'd go to my mentor and say, Hey, like, I have way much. I have about 60 hours of work to do this week. I have too much, and I probably have another 12 hours of emails I have to get through. And then she'd send me to a training, or she'd give me her tips on how to manage it. And, you know, you start to ask enough people, and before you know it, you start to develop a method of how to how to handle that. And that method was the same one that I used when I was effectively doing two jobs right when I was training my replacement to take over my largest accounts, and then also doing the rules of a director of consulting. There was, you know, before I got into that nice Coast area where I was making the most and working least. There was probably 6065, hours of work easy every week that I just can't handle. And so that system came, came the system I outlined in the book, came hand that transition. People are drowned in emails. And I've seen the you know, you I don't know when this started, but people have meetings back to back. The more important you are, the more meetings you seem to have. And it's like, oh, yeah, how can anyone work like that? And then people are multitasking during the meeting, because you can't work like that. You know, it's just insane. So it's good that you offer those, those methods. No, I appreciate that. I think, I think when you say that, a key point I want to, I want to say to our listeners too, is it's very important you redefine, you redefine, excuse me, like, what is productivity and what is output? And so I guess, you know the free exercise. You don't even have to buy me a book for this exercise. But the Free Exercise is especially, you know, with the holidays and the New Year and any breaks you have coming up with spring break and everything, if you work in corporate, I would recommend, just like, take 10 minutes, you know, or five minutes and think about what you did the day before, or the day before that. Or, you know, if it's Friday, think about what you did on Monday. And if you're like me, and you use your calendar for everything, you could probably look back and go, Oh, on calendar, I did this, and I did this, and I did this, and I did four hours of email, and. I did all of this, but for most of us, you know, looking back, we're like, I don't, I don't even know what I did on Tuesday. I know I worked nine hours, or I know I worked seven hours, but I have no idea what I actually got done, like, what was actually helpful. And so a big shift in my career, and I think I go into this in the book, is, is defining, like, what is productivity like, what? What are the things that you actually need to get done in a day? And the scenario I give to my readers is, you know, imagine emergency happens. You come into the office, it's nine o'clock, or you, you know you're working from home, you sit down in front of the computer, it's 9am and imagine you have 15 or 20 minutes, and then an emergency erupts. Your kids call you, you know, their schools on fire or something, or, I don't know, you know, your mom's in the hospital, and you need to dash out of the office, and you only have time for one thing. What is that one thing you would do so you don't have to start tomorrow in the same place you are today, right? Assuming the emergency is a one day thing. And so that's no that's really good. And what I'm hearing too, is that you're kind of helping people break that. I think a lot of us, if we don't do that, we just react to whatever comes, whatever gets our attention, the shiny thing. And that's not productive. That's really good. I wish, I wish I had done more of that myself. I appreciate that. Well, yeah, and I think, as we've talked about it at length now, now you have, you know, like I was, you have this layer of management and a lot of corporations that get paid so much and they have really nothing to do. And one of my favorite quotes Lynne, is people who are, by definition, very unproductive, will use the majority of their time appearing to be productive versus actually being productive. And it's the idea that, yeah, you have this whole layer in corporate America now that's giving other people work that really doesn't need to get done. And I think, I don't think they're necessarily doing it maliciously. I think maybe, like, I was in the role, you know, you start to lose your mind, and you're like, oh my god, like, I'm making good money. I need to earn this, you know, I need to contribute. And so you start giving people more stuff to do, and you really don't have to, maybe sometimes as to be a great leader, you just have to cut things out for people. You know, there's, there's this great experiment. I don't talk about it in my book. There's this great experiment where they researchers took like, a Lego bridge. And if you imagine, like, just this bridge made of Legos. One side is taller than the other, and they give it to participants with, like, a box of Legos next to it. And they're saying, okay, you know, fix it however you want. And it's like 100 or 99% of participants will start grabbing Legos out of the box and adding to the size that's too short to level the bridge when in in actuality, the easiest way to solve the bridge problem is by removing, like, three layers of bricks from the size that's that's too big, and that's a lot of the methodology that's, that's throughout my book, is like removing things actually will allow you to do better work. It'll allow you to get more done, and it'll really free up your cognitive ability to focus on the stuff that matters. Because I love that image. Yeah, that's such a great way of explaining I love Legos. Oh, yeah, me too. I always did Legos with my son. I love and my daughter, but that's such a great image because, yeah, that's not something you think of right away. Also, what I'm thinking too, is, like a lot of us, and I've done the same thing. We need to put our mark on something. We feel like we have to. It's like ego, you know. And I've, you know, because I'm a writer, I'm always being edited by someone else. And, you know, even when it might not be necessary, they have to edit it, right? You get used to that. And you see it in other areas where people just need to, you know, I touch this, I approve this, I you know, they need to put their mark on it. And so if you can quiet your ego, it's a much better leader, right? Because you're not going to always have to do that. It's a lot of busy work or unnecessarily drawing attention to yourself. And I love the whole idea of take some away so that you You just must have they must miss you, because you really empowered them, you know, like, that's, that's great. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah, I guess, I guess, towards the end, I really embrace my role is, like, I'm a fixer, you know, like, I'll give the ball to my running back. I am not a football guy, but the analogy right, is, I'll give my my works, yeah, thank you. And if they fumble it, my job is to recover it and try again, you know, and dust off my running back and say, Hey, you can do better. Here's the ball again. Go. My job is not to prevent them from making mistakes. They don't learn, and I don't learn how much they can handle with that. And so it's, you know, my job is as a firefighter. It's not as a fire preventer. Is another way to put it, I guess. And I appreciate that. Yeah, I think when I embraced that on my team, we were able to grow quite a bit, very fast, and everyone took on a lot of responsibility. And yeah, I guess I put myself out of a job, which was, which was nice, which is nice, besides the guilt and, you know, all the anxiety, it was nice, yeah, to be out of a job. Yeah. So the book comes out January 1. It comes out January 1. Yeah, it's on Kindle. It's called hacking the corporate jungle. How to work less make born actually like your life. It's on Kindle all the major stops. It's Barnes and Noble Kindle iBooks. And then it's in a few local I'm in from Denver. Still live in Denver, Denver, Colorado. And so it's in a few local coffee book and coffee shops around here as well. And it sounds like it's, it's moved from, you know, you were focusing at first recent grads, but it really applies to, I mean, I would definitely read this book. It applies to all of us. I appreciate it. Yeah, one of my first editors read it, and was like, I don't like, I don't think you're actually writing a book for new grads. I think you're writing a time management book for the new age. And I was like, Well, I like your lingo. Can I use that? But that's that's so cool, because you were seeing changes, and you were really thinking about it, right about what the future looked like, and you're going to help people deal with that, because there's a lot of stuff coming at us, you know, the AI stuff and the trying to understand, I also the remote, you know, versus not remote, like, that's such a big thing now they're trying to force people back to work. But I don't know that that ship has sailed where I agree. I think, I think it's and I think it's a power struggle. I think, you know that, like, the those in charge, or being like, Well, how do we do our jobs? Well, if we can't watch you and we can't keep you in your little confined cubicles, and the short answer is, right, is your job shouldn't be supervising people like maybe, maybe our society or our workforce has started to evolve past needing immediate supervisors. I mean, I'm old enough to remember going in every day, driving far, you know, the the wasted time, right, that and just accepting it, but also that it was more about, like, a factory mentality, like, you have to be here so many hours, and that equals, yeah, work and, like, it didn't matter if you got stuff done or not. Eventually they would figure it out, perhaps that you weren't doing anything. But a lot of people, they just were there, you know, like putting in their eight hours. That's the truth. And I remember one time we had a snow day. This is, like, a long, long time ago, probably like late 80s, we had a snow day, right? It was a sizable Corporation, and they said, I got in, you know, I made my way in. It was really hard. I wasn't far away, thank goodness. And there were no mountains. So I got in, and I sat there for like, an hour, hour and a half, and my boss came in, and he's like, well, we'd like you to try to get here. You can get here then, you know, we're calling it early because it's snowing so hard. And I'm like, turn around and go back driving the active snowstorm to go home. There was that kind of mentality, like you have to get here, you know, no matter what, and you have to sit there. So hopefully we're moving away from that, because I've never been more productive than being at home, especially for Well, I for some jobs. I'm sure it doesn't work as well, but for a writer, it's like blessing, because you can work extra long and you have that time to think, and you don't feel like you're working extra long because you're not commuting. And with all the interactive connections we have, all the applications, where I used to be on a project, where every morning, I met with a team from India every morning, and it was evening for them, and it was we moved through our features of the software release and, wow, it's great. It's like, what time is it? Locally? It's like, it's 7am and it's like, it's 8pm here, what is happening? Like, yeah, I can relate a little used to that, right? You had to say, Good morning, good evening. Just exactly. It's just, there's a lot of potential there. So I love that this book is looking at that, you know, like it's going to be harder to manage your time the old way. That's what I'm hearing. And I love that you're offering alternatives. No, I appreciate that. Yeah, I, I, you know, I spent two and a half years all in, I think, writing the book and researching for it, because as is as small and as humble as my initial, I guess draft was, it really blows up. I mean, Lynne as writer, you know, sometimes, if you don't stay very strict on what the vision is or what the goal is, your the problem can can manifest and be huge. And then, you know, your research takes you down all these rabbit holes, and then before you know it, you're looking at how to fix the world. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. How did you do that, though? How did you manage that? Well, honestly, I would say this is part one. I went for, okay, this corporation has problems. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't. You know, in a true economic system, you probably shouldn't make the most and work the least. That doesn't make sense, right? That's an echo of colonialism or an echo of elitism like that in today's world, like, I thought we were past that. So that shouldn't make sense, yeah. So I started with that problem, and then eventually, as you really dig in, you start to realize, like corporations with their fiduciary duties for leaders, which for those. Of you don't know, like, even if a leader morally wants to do a different thing, like they don't want to lay off 100 people, if the financiers, and, you know, their accounting teams and stuff, say, Hey, this is the most prudent and the best decision right now, they are legal, literally, literally, legally obligated to lay off those people and do what they think is best, or depending on the board and their major investors they are, they're risking their own career to then have to go in front of the board and explain to them like, Hey, I'm making a four year bet instead of doing what's most prudent for our bottom line right now, and laying those people off. And so I started with, Okay, I think the problem is just in this one corporation, and then it kind of blows up to, actually, it's the whole all of corporations, and then you get to, oh my gosh, it's the economy. And so it like led me down all these, all these different research avenues and where debt comes from, and the origins of money and and some fascinating stuff. And so I would say this is part one, like, we need people to disconnect their self worth from their work, and we need people to work less so they can calm themselves, and, I would say, center themselves and like, find their own spirituality and find their own peace and find who they are. Because, to your point, we have so much coming at us right now. And I think, I think one of the opinions is all the world's ending. And my former wife would tell you all that I see the world through money and through economic terms, and working in big data, I actually had access to databases that helped me, you know, evaluate this in a way that I don't think most people are privy to, and so I was very blessed for that. But what I'm trying to say is we already have an economic crisis on our hands, and we're struggling emotionally and psychologically, how to deal with it, like we don't have enough jobs for everyone. And you know, you think about how many people get paid astronomical amounts to play professional sports. How many people get paid to just talk about those players playing professional sports? How you know, how many, how many like we like? When you think about what essential work is, and running a city and running a society, we have the majority, I think it's like 660, or 70% of people now in non essential roles, because we're all struggling to figure out, you know, how to pay our bills and how to contribute, when, in fact, there's, there's, you know, we've gotten so efficient, and we've advanced technologically So much that there really isn't enough work for all of us. And I think the first take, and you get this in the news all the time, is, oh my gosh, this is a crisis. We need to roll back AI, and we need to roll back Robotics Engineering. And, you know, we need to stop this. And I think, I think the question I want to pose to the world, and this will be in my next book, right? Like this, this book, one is for setup, is, is okay in a world where we don't all have to work, what does our daily lives look like? How do you choose who works, and then how do you spend the majority of your time? And that brings me back to one of the first points of research that I uncovered when I was going down one of these rabbit holes lane, was there was a a economist back in the 1930s right around ironically, a contemporary of Henry Ford who helped roll out the 40 hour work week, and his name was John Maynard Keynes, and he predicted that his great grandchildren that to us by 2030 by 2030 he predicted that his great grandchildren are us, and our biggest problem would be Figuring out, due to labor saving technologies, what to do with all of their free time. And I think we're having that right now, like, you know, and I think there are some, you know, not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think, you know, my my research pointed and uncovered a lot of, I would say, nefarious interests and lobbying groups who want to keep people busy so we're not paying attention to, you know, them stealing from us, and everything that's happening in society that society that's not Kosher or it's not good, but I think the majority of us, I like to think that the majority of us, are struggling to figure out how we fit into a society and what a society looks like when we don't have to work all the time, because we've done it. You've got that bigger picture. I love that, that you've done that research, and you have that bigger picture, there's a transformation happening, and I and I, we don't know how to do it. We're moving to a whole different age. You know, definitely 100% Yeah. And like, we need different tools. So we need a different way to be and how to define what our life looks like and productivity looks like. The 40 hour work week is not cutting it. I couldn't agree more. Can you edit my next book? Lynne, this is great. This is fantastic. I'd love to you're speaking my language. I could probably talk to you for two hours. I really love what you're doing, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what my listeners think. They love the story, but they also will love the information, because who doesn't love something you can use? You know, it's almost like you wrote a guidebook, which I love. I love practical information that people can make sense of for their lives. So thank you for that. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you would like to talk about? Um, I would say just one thing, when I was, when I first, I guess, started on this journey. Ernie and I sat down at my desk, you know. I quit my job, and my last day was Friday. On Monday, I sat down at my desk in true workaholic fashion and wrote for five hours straight at that at that time, when I sat down, I was very naive in the fact that I thought I'll just come up, I'll solve the issue, you know, and I will come up with the best idea, the great idea, and I'll just roll it out to the world, and I'll get on great shows like yours, Lynne, and, you know, I'll preach my message, and everyone will get online. And then, you know, I'll lead the way into this new era, you know, and this new transformation. And the more and more you research, and the more and more you learn, the more humble you get, you know, thank God. And the more I realized that, like this solution, would be decentralized. And what I mean by that is rather than me being this hierarchical figure, or rather than our, you know, President, whoever they are, you know, rather than this authoritarian figure telling us this is the way the new world is going to work, and this is how we do this, the new paradigm, or the new the new way we organize all this is really going to be based on what we call in computer sciences, like network effects. And what I mean by that is like everyone's little contribution to this system is going to, in turn, make a better system. And so I would just say to all you listeners, like you probably know something to a degree that I don't. You almost undoubtedly know something and have an expertise in something that I don't. I'd love to talk about it. One and two, we need, we need your expertise, like to build a better world. Everyone needs to be involved, and we all need to be communicating and putting aside our egos, as you said earlier, Lynne, and we all need to really be like in it, for our for each other, you know, and together. And I think that's like the biggest lie throughout history is, you know, like, although there have been geniuses and great minds throughout history, like those weren't the people who necessarily spread their own ideas, it was the masses who adopted it and recognized it for brilliant that really, are really insightful, that that passed it along. And so I'd say, you know, we all need to do this together. And if you're, you know, stuck in corporate America as Lynne and I were for 10 hours or 12 hours a day, like you probably don't have the energy or time to to contribute your part. And I'm, and I'm really betting that's why you're here right now, is because your part is very much needed and, and, and we need you to stop working so much like, you know, you're the medicine, you know, we need you to join in. Yeah, I love that, because you see a new way. And that's a wonderful, hopeful message. Thank you. How can people reach you? What's the best way to reach you? I'll put it all in my book. I like to say it, yeah, I like to say it on the episode, because some people don't read the show. Yeah, sure. So you can find me on my website. It's Sean mcmahon.com that's S, E, A n, m, c, M, a n, n.com, you can sign up for my newsletter there. You can get all the links to all the different books formats. Next month, I'll be rolling out a one on one coaching program. So if you're interested in that, please feel free to reach it. Reach out. Yeah, thanks. I've had quite a bit of interest and demand in it, and so just to make sure I can do right by my my new clients, I'm only going to be taking on three new clients at first. And so if you're interested in being one of those first three, please let me know. Excellent. Yeah, like I said, we're going to have have to have you back for part two, because there's a lot to be said. I love talking to you. Thank you for sharing. Thanks for having me. Lynne, it's been my pleasure. You.