Find Your Flow

Welcome to lesson two of The Purposeful Performer!

To perform at your best as a value creator and revenue generator, you need to identify which phase you’re in—Transition, Build Mode, or Steady State—so you can match your rhythm to the right priorities and pace.

The result? Less stress, better outcomes, and clearer focus on what matters most.

Points up for grab: 5

Know your rhythm to maximize momentum

It’s only week two, so we’re still purposefully easing into things.

This is what will give you a strong foundation to a.) stick with this program (through the Valley of Despair) and b.) build the right type of deep thinking to unlock hidden treasures as we progress.

We’re exploring three key phases you’ll encounter throughout your career—Transition, Build Mode, and Steady State—and how understanding where you are can shape your strategies and expectations.

Think of it like shifting gears in a car: you can’t cruise on the highway in first gear, and you can’t climb steep hills in fourth gear.

Why does it matter for a Level II Revenue Generator?

You’re juggling big deals, personal milestones, and a vision of what you ultimately want to do if you could venture out on your own. If you can be clear about what phase you're in, you can get intentional about managing it effectively.

This will have a huge impact on:

• Your well-being

• Your performance

• Your relationship with yourself and others

The three phases look like this:

Let’s break it down further

We move between these phases multiple times as we progress in our careers and climb the three key levels. How fast we traverse through all three levels is highly unique to the individual.

There are nature and nurture factors that contribute to the pace. Some things we can control. Others we cannot. Zoomed in to the day-do-day, these factors may feel “bad” or “good.” But zoomed out really far, we discover they just “are.” The sooner you realize this, the lighter you can be (and the faster you can move).

Ok, that might be a bit too philosophical and meta, so let’s bring it back down to earth in practical terms.

The Three Levels: This is the framework I use to anchor us to where we are in our careers as value creators and revenue generators. We measure the status of our level using ownership of the most ubiquitous tool we all use to do our job—the calendar.

• Level I: When you’re starting out, others dictate what goes on your calendar the majority of the time. You have to follow strict onboarding, be in internal meetings, get appointments, etc. or run the risk of retribution.

• Level II: As you progress and gain more experience, you can turn that experience into more autonomy. The “fight” is to own more of your calendar with the things you want (opportunities that fill you up) vs the things you don’t want (draining events that deliver no value).

• Level III: This is where you fully own your calendar. You choose how full or empty it is based on what you desire and how much of your ambitions you wish to pursue.

The Three Phases: Now there is no exact science to the amount of times you may cycle through all three in a given Level, but you will need to work through all of them successfully to progress through each level.

• Transition: You start a new phase in your career. This could be starting in the workforce, beginning a new role, getting a new territory or comp plan, a new year, or transitioning from the corporate world to do your own thing. Things are a bit slow, unknown, and it's your "figure sh*t out" time.

• Build Mode: You have to bring something to life. Now that you're settled in and you have your assignment, account list, pro forma, or ideas, it's time to execute. This is when you're a lion sprinting for it's kill so everyone can eat. This is best done with focus, intensity, and precision (or else the family is going to go hungry).

• Steady State: You maintain a consistent output. This is about moving to a more steady rhythm. This phase, ideally lasts the longest and builds your craft, pushing you steadily up and to the right.

Warning: You’ll want to avoid stagnation, complacency, and boredom, so don’t stick around phase three for too long. The goal is to oscillate back down to phase two and one appropriately, and then ladder back up again with a new set of capabilities.

Find a balance between having enough roles that give you the experience and challenges you seek with enough stability and space to apply that experience and generate leverage.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

• More roles = More times running through the phases, which speeds up innovation (ability to think fast, convince others, create new opportunities that didn’t exist) but not necessarily tangible gains (unique knowledge, stellar reputation, steady/growing income, etc.)

• Less roles = More time in Steady State, which can slow innovation (locked in as a specialist vs a generalist, develop blind spots, lack of challenges, etc.), but may bring higher gains (mega deal opportunities, promotions, RSUs, etc.)

Putting it into practice

The traditional onboarding sales process employed by most tech companies sucks.

I can attribute winning an MVP award and achieving 177% to target in my first year as a Strategic Account Director at LivePerson by bucking the normal onboarding trend.

I call this "canvassing"—trying out small ideas and experiments based on what you learn while deeply educating yourself about your company's point-of-view (you need to turn it into your own) before you start on the job.

The traditional onboarding process for most enterprise and strategic sellers, however, is one designed around taking it slow out of the gates and immersing yourself in the product only once you start.

The problem with this approach is it lulls sellers into a false sense of security, where you feel you can take it easy and build your point-of-view and territory thoughtfully at your own pace. But the pressure starts mounting as quickly as month four, and your well-meaning strategy gets decimated in favor of an uninspired, high-pressured and activity-driven approach forced down from the top.

The power completely shifts out of your hands, and by that point, it’s tough to gain it back. I’ve witnessed sellers even getting fired within their first six months when they thought they had more time to build their book of business.

The problem in these situations is these sellers aren’t operating in the right phase at the right time.

Let’s unpack a better way so you never find yourself in this vulnerable position.

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