How To Make Yourself Invaluable

Maximizing Your Career Without a College Degree

In this episode of Winning Without College, host Stuart, a college dropout himself, aims to guide you on achieving professional success without a college degree.

Stuart emphasizes that a college degree is not a safety net that guarantees job security or career advancement. Instead, personal accomplishments and making oneself invaluable to employers are crucial.

Using his personal experiences in the radio industry, Stuart explains how he made himself indispensable across multiple departments, which protected him from layoffs and ensured continuous career growth.

He advises you to excel in their current roles, regardless of their position, and to take initiative to stand out in their company. The episode encourages listeners to build their personal brand, network effectively, and continuously seek opportunities for career advancement by switching companies regularly.

Stuart concludes by motivating listeners to think ahead and prepare for future opportunities by being the best in their current role, thereby setting themselves up for long-term success.

00:00 Welcome to Winning Without College

00:31 The Myth of the College Degree Safety Net

02:28 Making Yourself Invaluable Without a Degree

02:35 Stuart's Personal Journey to Success

04:47 The Importance of Accomplishments and Self-Value

08:52 Job Hopping: A Strategy for Rapid Career Advancement

10:17 Building Your Personal Brand for Future Opportunities

10:49 Closing Thoughts and Encouragement

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Episode Transcript

Stuart (00:10):
And welcome to Winning Without College, the podcast that
helps you get ahead in business andin life all without a college degree.
My name is Stuart, your host, yourcoach, and fellow college dropout.
In this podcast, I give you actionablesteps you can take right now in your
career to set yourself up for rapid careeradvancement, entrepreneurial success,
and achieving an above average lifestyle.

(00:31):
So today, we're gonna talkabout accomplishments.
You know, people use collegedegrees as a safety net.
Have you ever heard someone say, atleast I'll have a degree to fall back on?
Have you ever heard that?
I don't understand what they meanbecause when they say that, it's
like they're saying if I fail, acollege degree is going to save me.

(00:52):
It's my safety net.
It's going to prevent me fromhitting the ground and going plop.
Well, you know what?
I don't agree with that.
A college degree is not going to saveyou in a lot of certain situations.
Especially because nowadays,people are getting degrees in
areas they're not even working in.
You know, I know people that haveAccounting degrees that are working

(01:13):
in completely different fields, andthat's not even an accounting anything,
you know, so it's it's just not true,unfortunately, and you know, if a company
is is laying off people, they're notusing a college degree is a metric on
whether or not you're going to stayor go, they're using other things.
They're looking at other criteria.

(01:34):
If a company is going tohave to do it through layout.
So let me give you an example.
If a company comes out and they say we'regonna lay off 30 percent of a specific
department, it's digital, maybe it'smarketing, finance, or sales, whatever
the department, you know, they're notgonna be keeping someone based on whether
or not they have a college degree.
So what is it are theygoing to be looking at?
They're going to be looking at people whohave contributed the most to a company.

(01:58):
They're going to be looking at peoplewho are the most valuable to the company.
They're going to be looking at peoplethey feel has the most potential and
who can take on more responsibility.
They're going to be keeping peoplewho are team players, and they're
going to be keeping people who havestepped up in the past that the
company is just very optimistic on.
And so we, as college dropouts, cannotrely on a diploma as our safety net.

(02:21):
Actually, no one should really do that.
Not only because we don't haveone, but it's because it's
worthless in these situations.
So what do we need to do?
What do we need to do to makeourselves invaluable to a company?
So I applied this when I started working.
I started working when I was 15.
I was an intern at a radio station.

(02:41):
And then when I became 16, they put me onpayroll, that was the youngest that they
can actually pay somebody, and I did allof this, and then I moved, that company
was sold, and I went to a differentstation, it was an oldie station, and
when I came on board, I originallystarted in the programming department.
And with the midday person who was alsothe program, the production director.
But I quickly found myself working inthe promotions department, and then I

(03:03):
worked with sales and I worked with a lotof different other departments in there.
I made myself invaluable to notjust one department and to one
person, but to multiple departmentheads and in multiple capacities.
When, when that company was soldto someone else, I went to go
work for a different station.
It was a classic rock station.
And over there.
I ended up being the morning showproducer, so I worked 5am to 10am,

(03:25):
and then after that I switched overto the promotions department, and
I worked over there until 2 or 3 orwhatever, , after I got off the air.
When automation came to the radioindustry, this was in the late
90s or early 2000s, not only did Isurvive the layoffs when everyone
else and a lot of other people werelet go, I was actually given a raise.
I was the only person of like thatcaliber group of what I was doing

(03:47):
that wasn't given a pink slip.
Because I made myself invaluable tomultiple departments, I worked my ass off.
I made myself available to differentpeople within the company, to different
departments within the company.
Programming loved me because Itook care of the morning show and
I handled all of those duties.
I understood what it was liketo be behind the microphone.
Promotions loved me because I hadthat background already and I didn't

(04:10):
mind all of the, a lot of the gruntwork, whatever else needed to be done.
Promotions in radio, if you don'tknow, it's, it's kind of like the
first to arrive, the last to leave,and it involves a lot of just
physical labor, manual labor, settingstuff up, tearing things down.
It's probably the most invisibledepartment and the most underappreciated
department within the business.
And sales, the sales departmentloved me because I knew how to

(04:32):
balance the needs of the client.
With the goals and the desires of theDJs while I'm doing public appearances,
I can see things from everyone'sdifferent perspectives, and because of
that, I was able to develop creativesolutions that made everyone happy.
So you need to focus on youraccomplishments, and you need
to focus on making yourselfinvaluable to your current company.

(04:55):
Now think about this for a second, okay?
I want you to visualize this.
You're sitting in an interview for ajob right now, and the interviewer,
the person on the other side ofthe table, asks you this question.
What have you done in yourcurrent job you are most proud of?
Now, I want you, really want you tothink about this, and what can you say
right now that is better in the Becauseof you, what changes have you made

(05:23):
that has made the company stronger?
What ideas of yours have youimplemented that made a positive change?
And if you can't think of any,or you don't have any, now is the
time to start working at that.
Now is the time for you to begin doingsomething in your current role that
will make someone else want to hire you.

(05:43):
Now, you may be saying, I'm justa cashier at a big box store or
I'm just a janitor or whatever.
How can I make adifference in the company?
It's such a large company.
Well, first off, I need youto change your thinking, okay?
There's no such thingas I'm just a whatever.
You are a key member of a company,of a bigger picture, whether you

(06:04):
believe that your company thinksyour job is valuable or not.
It is.
And if you don't think it is and youjust need to quit working, you need to
believe that you have the most importantrole in that company and whatever it is,
because you can make a positive change.
You need to believe it.
And this is going to help changeyour mindset to saying, Oh, I'm
just a low man on the totem pole.
Nobody ever listens to me justshowing up and saying, Here I am.

(06:27):
I am way more capable of doingmore than what you have me doing.
You need to believe it.
So a lot of people think they're notpaying me a lot, so I'm not going to
work that hard because they need topay me more and then I'll step up.
Well, guess what?
You got that backwards.
You need to step up first.
If you're going to sit around and wait fora company to pay you what you think you're

(06:47):
worth, that's never going to happen.
Or very, very rarely isthat going to happen.
You're going to need to take the stepand step up and then you're going
to need to outperform everybody elseand you're going to need to expect
to not get compensated for that.
You might get an employee of themonth thing or a little pat on the
back or something like that, but it'snot going to contribute into like
a bigger financial gain right now.

(07:09):
Remember, we're playing thelong game, not the short game.
What you're doing right now is youare making yourself invaluable.
So that way when another company jobcomes up or something happens that you
want to try and make a move or get apromotion at a different company or
something like that, you are ready to go.
You've already made yourself invaluableand they're going to go, man, I wish they
hadn't left or man, I wish, you know,we could have done more to keep them.

(07:31):
That's where your headneeds to be right now.
So I ask you, how can you bethe best damn cashier in the
company you currently work for?
How can you be the most valuablejanitor in the building?
How can you be the best?
At whatever job it is that you arecurrently doing, that's where your focus
needs to be, because you can't think ofit as, oh, I'm helping this multi billion

(07:53):
dollar company make another dollar.
You can't think of it that way,because in that aspect, yes,
you are just a small wheel.
You have to think of it from yourecosphere, from your perspective.
What can I do to make myself thebest person, the best cashier, be the
best server, the best salesperson?
And because then you can take thoseskills and start shopping them

(08:14):
around to different companies.
That's what you need to do.
You need to make the first step.
You can't wait for a company topay you more for you to step up.
You need to go first.
Now you might be thinking, but Stuart,my company won't pay me more, I've
already asked, but you stepping up andmaking yourself invaluable isn't for
this job, it's for the next one, and theone after that, and the one after that.

(08:35):
What you're doing is you're buildingup your personal brand, you're
building up your personal credibility.
And we're going to talk aboutmore of that later on in future
episodes, but this is the foundation.
You can't wait for a company toacknowledge your skills, you're
going to have to build it and doit for you, not for somebody else.
And yes.
Job hopping is the fastest way to success.

(08:56):
When I was coming up the ranks, Imoved jobs about every two or three
years or so, because you can alwaysmake more money, you can always get
that next title, move up that ladder,if you're moving companies, than if
you're just sitting around waitingfor something to happen to you.
So I went from, all the way from anassistant, all the way to a director
level, in less than five years.
Because I switch companies and each timeI switch companies every two or three

(09:18):
years, I moved up from the assistantto the manager level to the senior
manager level to the director level.
I made high end movesevery two or three years.
And with each of those highend moves came a big pay jump.
Each of those little steps every twoor three years came with significant
earnings, incomes, advancements.
I went out and I did it myself.
I didn't wait forsomeone to give it to me.

(09:40):
And one of the jobs I had,there was somebody that had been
with the company for 15 years.
And to this day, this personis still with that company.
It took them, oh gosh, I wantto say like 25 years to move
from a manager perspective toa vice president perspective.
And that was 15 to 20 years.
I mean, can you imagine staying at onejob and just treading water and just

(10:00):
getting your 2 to 3 percent increases?
That is, that is just such a waste of yourtime, and such a waste of your talent.
You need to be getting out there, you needto be making that personal brand, and you
need to be getting yourself out there.
No one else is going to do it for you.
So you need to begin buildingthese accomplishments.
You need to start strengthening yourself.

(10:22):
Your relationships you need to startnetworking with people in your company
and people at companies you would liketo work for and when the time is right
when that position opens up you'llbe ready to jump on that opportunity
and have a leg up on everybody else.
You can't wait for anyone else to do it.
No one's going to give you a handout.
You need to make yourself invaluable.

(10:43):
You need to be able to show peoplewhy you should be part of their team.
Well, that's what I got for you today.
My name is Stuart withWinning Without College.
I hope you found thisinformation valuable.
And I hope you can go back to your jobtomorrow or even later today whenever
you're listening and say, how can I bethe best damn whatever in this company?

(11:03):
Because that's what's going to setyouself up for success in the next round.
And that's what it is.
It's the next round.
Be thinking ahead.
Be thinking a year or two ahead.
What's next?
What's next?
What's next?
Thanks for listening to Winning WithoutCollege, the podcast that helps you
get ahead in business and in life.
If you haven't done so already, pleasego to Apple Podcasts or Spotify,
wherever you're listening to thispodcast, and give us a five star review.

(11:27):
Thanks for listening, and wewill see you in the next episode.