Jason Tartick - The Restart Roadmap: Rewire and Reset Your Career

2022 Jason Tartick

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ISBN 978-1-4002-2687-0 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-2686-3 (HC)

Epub Edition February 2022 9781400226870

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951961

Printed in the United States of America

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FOR MOMMA CALUCH & GAR-BONE,

thank you for the consistent support, love, and encouragement through each and every day, since day one...

I am on the floor of a well-appointed executive mens bathroom at the headquarters of an important client. At the moment, I am having a flat-out, full-featured anxiety attacktrembling, sweating, turning white as a ghost, hugging myself for dear life, absolutely terrified. Beads of anxiety-propelled sweat are dripping off my forehead and stinging my eyes. Sweat is coursing down my spine and soaking my Brooks Brothers shirt, the one I had to have but waited to buy till Black Friday. I am totaled.

I was at the clients headquarters as part of my rapid rise up the corporate ladder, where I was perceived as someone on the fast track. Specifically, I had been asked to accompany a senior banker to an important client meeting. His name is William; he prefers going by Bill.

Actually, the meeting was more like a cattle auction. An important piece of business was at stake, and just about every bank in the area was pitching its own plan for it.

The pitch took place in a long, long conference room. The CEO of the company was at the head of the table, the chief financial officer was at his side, and a lot of other obviously high-level execs were seatedin descending order of title, no doubtdown the table on either side. Everyone in the room, both the banker pitchers and the client catchers, knew exactly what was going on and how high the stakes were.

Our game plan was that Bill would make the presentation and do all the talking. I was there to represent the brand. My job that day was to look right, to say the right things without ever getting a single fact wrong and without ever stumbling over a single word, and to assume the proper posture, just as I had done many times in the past. I was a message. My presence told the clients team that our bank not only had depth of talent, but we also kept an eye on the future, represented by yours truly, a twentysomething up-and-comer. I helped convey the message that we were a smart, forward-looking bank that knew how to make our clients feel like they were our highest priority. That there were just the two of us representing our bank shows you just how much trust was being placed in me to get it right. And to act composed and correct while doing it.

So, senior banker Bill and junior banker me faced off against the dozen or so client execs in position around the table. Bill signaled for the first PowerPoint slide, and our pitch was underway. All eyes were riveted on the screen, all ears attuned to Bills smooth presentation, and I was right there, in the roleuntil suddenly, I felt my chest tighten and my heartbeat speed up something crazy, and somehow, I just knew that I had to get the hell out of there. It was, quite simply, the basic fight-or-flight response kicking in.

Excuse me, I said, and all eyes turned to me. Is there a bathroom? Bill shot me a look: What are you doing? Are you nuts?!? Hold it in!but one of the client execs replied that it was just around the corner, and I bolted, hoping that I did not look as bloodless as I felt.

I found the place, locked the door behind me, and thats when I fell on the floor. I really dont know how long the anxiety attack lasted until I managed to pull myself back together and head back into the meeting. Senior banker Bill seemed mollified. Apparently, I really had looked awful. But the presentation had gone well. What I mostly remember is that when he and I left the meeting and walked outside to our cars, I took in the sweetest breath of fresh air I had ever known.

Even before that anxiety attack, I had begun to realize that the life I was living wasnt the life I had planned, and it sure as hell wasnt the life I wanted.

The exact moment is a little blurry, but the realization was crystal clear: I felt like I was in career jail Monday to Friday. Those five days, I followed a script: show up early, stay late, work hard, dress appropriately, look the part, act the part, always say yes, live by the company mission... blah... blah... fucking blah!

Till late Friday afternoon, when the cuffs came off and I found myself at the bar in town ordering shot number one and Keep em coming! I took that first sip, held it in my mouth for a second, swallowed, coughed slightly because I suck at shots, but even with that, it was the first time in five days that I felt free.

Yet by Sunday afternoon I was feeling jumpy all over again, and by Sunday night I was way down, flattened by my own personal kryptonite, the Sunday Night Scaries. Thats what I called the sharp, jittery stabs of stress that seemed to eat away at my gut because of what was coming up the next day.

And when I heard the office door close behind me Monday morning, I felt locked in all over again with the walls closing in on me.

And heres the thing: I felt this way despite the fact that I had the job I had wanted and planned for pretty much since I could remember. I got that job right out of college, where I had earned a bachelors degree in business administration. I was hired by a highly regarded financial corporation seen as innovative and growing, and I was assigned immediately to its elite management training program. And by the time I started wondering what the hell I was doing there, I was already a corporate-banking relationship manager scoring off-the-charts performance reviews and moving swiftly up the ladder of success. In other words, I was just where I was supposed to be in my career planmaybe even a little ahead of the planand all I wanted was to get out.

Do you ever feel the way I did? Because I know Im not alone in this.