What's up everyone welcome back to another episode of the crazy ones I am your host Alex Lieberman and I'm back with another journal style episode of the show let me give you some context first last week I put out a tweet and a LinkedIn post about my employee ID from Morgan Stanley my very first job out of college this post got 900,000 impressions I feel like it struck a chord with people and so I want to both read the post to you so if you didn't see it now you will

also give you the full story behind the post. And so this episode is all about how we should be thinking about the role of comfort in our careers and how if I had stayed comfortable at Morgan Stanley I wouldn't have had the privilege of sharing my story with you right now let's hop into it what's up everyone I'm Alex Lieberman you know this is Jesse Pooji and this is the crazy ones so this is

the tweet I put out that got 900,000 impressions that I'm going to go deeper on found this puppy in my closet yesterday by the way I was giving a lot of grief for using the word puppy there it was my employee badge from Morgan Stanley in 2015 there's no real reason to hold on to it anymore it has no utility but I'll never throw it out because of what it symbolizes this badge stands for comfort a comfortable job as a bond trader a comfortable salary making 85,000

dollars per year a comfortable narrative for my family a comfortable story to tell the world hey I'm Alex I studied finance undergrad I'm working as a trader now and maybe one day I'll go to a hedge fund but there was actually nothing

comfortable about this job I didn't enjoy it my first boss treated me like shit I wasn't operating within my zone of genius the job required deep

mathematical and analytical skills my zone centers around creativity storytelling and relationships I felt lost inadequate professionally and new deep down this story of comfort was a delusion

a delusion created by the comfort of stagnancy and the comfort of doing what was expected so yes this badge stands for comfort but what it really stands for are the perils of comfort the mirage that comfort creates

and that to be truly comfortable long term you must accept discomfort today because if I subscribe to comfort then I'd still be in that job or one like it feeling inadequate out of place short of my potential and ironically incredibly uncomfortable and tweet

if you actually we can link to it in the show notes but if you go to the actual tweet there's a picture of my Morgan Stanley ID from 2015

I was at Morgan Stanley from 2015 to 2016 I look very young there so you can check out the post as I reflect on this story and I reflect on my first job as I'm talking about it out loud I think the most

interesting thing about this post is that being comfortable actually becomes incredibly uncomfortable over time and I think that's because there

is this difference between external comfort and internal comfort that we don't talk about we are given a definition of comfort by the world that we are taught to believe in

that a corporate job is less risky than a non corporate job that strong work life balance is important that getting paid more is better than getting paid less

but internally I think we as people have a way more nuanced view of comfort internally some of us feel most comfortable when we're growing and acquiring skills quickly some of us feel most comfortable when we're obsessed with something

and actually don't have perfect work life balance at points at all some of us feel most comfortable when we feel true ownership over the work we're doing

and so my view is that when our external comfort and our internal comfort are out of whack we ironically feel very uncomfortable in life

now I'm not suggesting that having a steady job and making money to provide for your family is bad it's not bad and it should be the top priority in my opinion

but I do think once you climb above the point of financial survival comfort becomes a really complicated topic that's so many of us wrestle with on a daily basis

and all I can share is my own experience with comfort and the benefits of putting myself in places of discomfort

I feel most uncomfortable when I'm in a state of comfort for too long because I feel fear that I'm not growing or gaining new skills or maximizing my potential

and so the rule that I've created for myself has always been to force myself into a state of measured discomfort versus having discomfort forced onto me because of my own prolonged comfort ability

and let me explain what that means I did it with Morgan Stanley and making the jump to Morning Brew full time that was uncomfortable I did it with building the brew and putting myself out there to sell advertisements, manage employees, raise money, having never done it before

...