You’re Not Just an Employee—You’re a Business (Secrets of the Career Game #1)

Kendall kicks off the six-part mini-series with a career truth most people avoid: your job is not your job—it’s your business.

If you’re waiting around for your boss to hand you a promotion or finally notice your hard work, this is your wake-up call. Kendall explains why treating your career like a business is the first mindset shift you need to break free from being an "order taker" and start being seen as a valuable player. It's not about completing tasks—it's about driving impact.

Pre-order Secrets of the Career Game (out May 13) to access exclusive resources, a private Slack group, and live Q&A sessions with Kendall.

👉 Pre-order now and send your receipt to [e-mail] to join the community.

📌 In this episode, we discuss:

• How can I start treating my career like a business?

• Why do people get stuck in “order taker” roles?

• What does impact-driven communication look like?

• How do I pitch my value at work?

• What mindset do I need to actually get promoted?

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That Career Coach

Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?

Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_

Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/

 

 

Episode Transcript

Kendall Berg (00:00):
Thank you guys for tuning in to this special edition episode of the podcast where we are sharing six strategies to be successful in the career game over six weeks as we prepare for the launch of my new book, Secrets of the career 36 simple strategies to Win in the Workplace. I am so excited to finally be bringing this to you guys. And so as we prepare for the book launch on May 13, I'm going to share six different secrets from the book in the hopes that you would get some helpful advice, you would feel excited about what's to come and that you would pre order the book.

(00:33):
If you do pre order, go ahead and send me an email copy of your [e-mail] and you will get added to a special top secret Slack group where we're going to be discussing the book Q and A. You'll get additional resources and there will be some live calls with me once the book drops. So super excited. Kicking us off Week one. The first secret that we're going to be talking about in Secrets of the Career Game is the first secret of the book, which is you are an entrepreneur and your career is your business.

(01:01):
The mistake I see a lot of people make especially modern times when it's cool to run your own business and it's cool to be an influencer and it's not cool to work a 9 to 5 corporate job is we start to think that our job is just a job. We're a cog in this big machine. We don't have any autonomy or control over our career and so we really fall into this bad situation of just kind of accepting what our boss is willing to give us and really setting aside our personal preferences. But the reality is you are essentially selling your time and your skillset to your company in exchange for a salary. And if you can make that mindset shift in your head, you'll be able to instead refocus and pitch yourself.

(01:41):
Here's the skills I have, here's why I should be on this project. Here's the value that I bring to the company, here's why that value is worth a promotion or more money or is competitive in the market. And so when you start to think of your career as a business where you are selling yourself as a product, it's really going to help you revolutionize the way that your career is going to progress.
Where I see this help people the most is especially if you've been an order taker for an extended period of time, meaning you've been an individual contributor, you've been working in the same team or the same organization, you've likely fallen into a rut where everything is task based, your boss thinks everything is important, and yet every year we get the same dangle of a carrot of, well, if you keep working really hard, maybe you'll get promoted in the future without clarity of what that timeline looks like, what the expectations are, what goals we need to have in place. So this is where self advocacy becomes really important. If you saw your career as a business, I bet you wouldn't stay in that job longer than you need to. I bet you wouldn't take on clients who you don't like.

(02:40):
I bet you wouldn't do work that you didn't think was a good alignment to your skills. I bet you wouldn't stay with a company that wasn't paying you fairly or compensating you effectively. But instead we think, well, it's just the job, it's the grind, I'll make it work. And there are times to do that, there are times to manage up, there are times to advocate for yourself. But when you think of your career as a business, over time you are the only person who is responsible for what's happening to you.

(03:08):
If a boss is treating you poorly for an extended period of time and managing up is not effective, if you're not getting promoted, if you're not getting the projects that you want, if you're not getting the opportunities you want, it is your responsibility as the CEO of Kendall Incorporated to leave that company and go find a better opportunity, go find more fair compensation, go find a role that's a better fit for you. See yourself as an entrepreneur, right? The other piece of this is that when we sell ourselves as a business as opposed to I have a job that pays me a salary, the way we talk about the work that we do is different, right? We're not simply completing tasks because you wouldn't pitch a list of tasks if you were a consultant.

(03:50):
If you were going to a company and saying, hey, you should pay me X dollars. You wouldn't bring them a huge laundry list of like answered emails, returned phone calls, talk to my coworkers. You wouldn't bring them a list of tasks. What you would bring them is impact you're going to have to their business. I'm going to save you X million dollars and it's worth paying me. I'm going to make your team X percent more efficient and that's worth paying me. I'm going to deliver X product and that's worth paying me. So start to think of the value that you bring to your company in terms of the impact you're driving. And then it's much easier to pitch yourself. It's much easier to talk about the projects you're working on and why they're important. It's much easier to get promoted.

(04:27):
It's much easier to network. Your career is your business, and you are an entrepreneur. Get out of your own way. Stop waiting for your boss to take you on and make you their business. Some do. Most don't. You're a CEO. You're a CEO today. Treat your career that way. Biggest secret in the book.