Mike Dobson: History Degree to Senior IT Leader

S3E2: Before leaning into his passion for computers and creating a career as a Senior IT Leader, Mike Dobson had dreams of becoming a History teacher and rugby coach.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Unexpected Career Podcast, where we share stories of real people and the twists and turns they have taken along their career journey. I am Megan Dunford, and as someone who found myself in the payments industry, largely by accident, I'm fascinated by how people's careers unfold and how they've gotten to where they are today. It's also why I'm passionate about reducing the pressure on young people, about going to university, what to take in school, and on getting that right first job Today I am speaking with Mike Dobson, a senior IT leader who had plans of becoming a history teacher and rugby coach before following his passion for computers. Hi Mike. How are you? I'm okay.. I'm both nervous and excited, I guess for this morning. I think it'll be. Awesome, and I'm really excited to have you on. So thank you for making the time first thing in the morning. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. I've got a pretty long day ahead of me, actually. So why don't we jump in? Okay. So I always start. From when you were small, like when you think back when you were a child, is there something you wanted to be when you grew up? Did you have ideas of what you might wanna be when you grew up? Sure. You know, originally when I was a kid, like every other kid, I wanna be a farm or a, please, man, and, in, my first real access to thinking about something through high school. I had a lot of influence by several of my teachers, right? Particularly my history teachers. And, I was, I played rugby in a lot of team sports and, as I was going through high school, I'm like, I don't know what I quite wanna do. And I had. Different levels of skillsets. And, I was struggling in some areas, but really excelling in others. I was a athlete and, really, did quite a few things there. But I love the history stories. So my dream was to, become a history teacher and go back to my old high school and coach rugby, and that's kind of what I wanted to do. And, as I was going through, university and I was struggling and I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Mm-hmm. And my particular waveform manifests itself is what I write. And I remembered all the way back through my university career I was already working in computers. When I first started high school, most people did typing classes, on old manual typewriters, and that was a thing. And I was also doing computers, through high school. But even in university, most of the students were still using typewriters and certainly professors were. So I started up my own business actually helping people buy and set up computers and, repairing them and things of that nature. And I was doing that through university, but as I was getting closer to my, my. University, I discovered that really there was no a lot of opportunities. There were a lot of high paying jobs within the education department. And, I was like, this, computer thing seems like a good idea. What do I see what happens there, Run my own business, go down that particular path. That's amazing. So, started out thinking you wanted to be a history teacher. Yeah. Did you take history in university? Yeah. That's what my degree is in actually. which funny thing is it really has set me apart through my career. I've been in leadership most of my career and, the ability to learn and communicate have really set me apart. So, I've always really understood the computer aspect of things, whether, talking about the networking or, you know firewalls and, digging into that and getting into the rules and how to set those up and how the technology works and data flow and so on and so forth. So I always had a really good understanding of that. Just came, I won't say simply to me, but. I worked hard to learn a lot of that. Mm-hmm. I had a few good teachers and, put a lot of effort into learning on my own because I could take that technical information and convert it into something else and so they could understand, it really kind of allowed me to, get better access to more senior executives and working with them on a regular basis. I was able to trade technical knowledge for, business acumen or. Just really seeing how they worked. And asking those questions, you know, those mentors really made a huge difference for me in understanding what leadership really looked like. Not managers or somebody who's in charge of people, but real leadership and what that means. And so it really became a big piece for me to emulate those pieces but still continue to expand on the technology side where, my passion has definitely laid, I think it's such a good argument of a diversity of skill sets there's a lot of conversation in society or in the media of, funneling people down stem. And it's not that we don't need people in STEM degrees or in engineering, et cetera but things like history, English, the humanities, the social sciences, they're also very important and they bring a different skillset. Even if you ultimately end up in a more technical field. So I love, I love that. That's a great example. You were saying too, you were working on computers through university and so that's what you decided to pursue after. So what was your first job? Did you continue doing your own thing in tech? What did that look like when you first graduated? Yeah, so I was living in Ottawa and I was still doing my own thing in tech and I was developing a whole bunch of different kind of roles as a tech field, this is, the very early nineties mm-hmm. You know, Google didn't exist, yahoo didn't exist. Microsoft was out there, but they were still mostly just the OS side and, few things in office, but it wasn't quite the jugg dot that it is now. And, a lot of offices didn't even have computers or they may have one. So I continued to do my own thing and I was still out there doing what's called a managed service provider, not even understanding what that role was. But at the time I had a mobile phone and, I was just constantly on the phone providing support to businesses, pretty much around the clock. But even had an idea how to really run a business, I didn't. when I had to charge my services properly, I definitely didn't know how to get money in properly. I was running up massive mobile phone bills. Mobile services is not what they are now, but I would pay almost$2,000 a month, but make a couple hundred bucks in revenue in some cases. It was unsustainable very quickly. And I had some good ideas and, I was working on developing webpages at the time. That was a big thing, companies having a webpage was a huge concept. So I had to sell people on the idea of having a webpage and then, go through and build it out. So even some of the sales aspects I was doing, working, with small businesses. Obviously realized pretty quickly that, didn't really know how to run a business. I didn't know anybody that really did either. Mm-hmm. So, I started working in computer store then, worked in what's called an outsource call center. So, at that call center, I started off and I showed up in a shirt and tie every day. And, everybody else is wearing t-shirts and jeans and just working on the phones. And I'm like I'm going to a job and this is what I think. You should do when you go to a job. Dress for the job you want, I guess. But I didn't even put that much thought into, I'm just like, if you're gonna go to a company and you're gonna work in a job, then that's what you should do in an office. So that's what I did. So I remember taking, quite a bit of abuse from some of my, colleagues at the time. And, they really just didn't get that I was working very hard. So I might work, seven days a week. I was putting in 80, a hundred, even some cases even more than that. So I was working wow. 60 hours a day, in some cases, 20 hours a day, sleeping in the office and just doing that role. So, I evolved very quickly. That company, got into running all kinds of different things and got exposed and it was a small company. I was employee number 20 the time I left we had a couple of thousand Wow. A few years later so that exponential growth of that organization was built to do that. But because of that, and I was willing, and I had, a skillset that, I ended up working on all kinds of things Nobel and building out, how the phone system worked and building out IBR. You know, we did it on paper, but so interesting. We were building out what the phone tree would look like. Mm-hmm. And we literally drew it on paper and covered the floor with paper as we were doing the kind of routing. It was just so interesting being in that early stages of, doing these hadn't really been invented yet. Or if not, we were reinventing them, but it wasn't like we could go on YouTube and figure out how to do this. YouTube didn't exist. Mm-hmm. Uh, so it's figuring all these things out, really laid the groundwork for resiliency. Right. Is, hey, I'll figure it out. In my own level of self-confidence is I'm a pretty clever fella and I'll try and I was willing to fail. And I was willing to try, put forth the effort. In the back of my head I was like, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna make it work. So the drive was more of those things that I will be successful, whatever's put in front of me I'll just figure it out. I had that sense of confidence around that. Was that confidence? False? Maybe, but that was at least the thought process was what I wanted to do, but also very passionate about problem solving. That's one of the things I'm hearing Correct. Kind of excited and curious about like, let's figure this out. Yeah, definitely as my career has evolved and, I became more involved a lot more process things again, something called ITIL and really kinda learn about, how to take it, which is, when I started it was really the wild West to just figure it out, and adding structure to it. So I am somebody who does like structure. I am somebody who likes to bring process to things. So as I started to learn about some of these processes, so okay, let me kinda apply that systematic approach and work through that. Problem solving as a whole one of the things that, I tell talks about is, is being incidents, right? There's, I want something which is a request, or something's broken, which is an incident, it's not working as designed. So when these incidents occur. I'm the fireman, I guess going all the way back to my childhood fantasy is, if when the fire breaks out or something is happening and you need, who am I gonna call? You know, I'm that ghostbuster. I will jump on the phone. I will take control of this situation. Let me manage it. I'll communicate up, I will communicate down, I will make sure that we figure out the problem is as quickly as possible. And usually my puzzle solving skills are quite high. So I can usually figure out, oh no, it's this. And it's not always obvious, but I can very quickly figure out what that issue is and then direct people to go and help teamwork to solve it. So, yeah, very much so. Problem solving as a whole and figuring out puzzles. Cool. And that first company role you had was all of that.'cause as you said, tech was pretty new. It was a bit the wild west, right. And. You were saying that you worked on so many different types of projects and implementations, so the amount you would've learned about various tech as it was really emerging as. Pretty cool. Very much so. The interesting was, primarily we were doing a few other things, but primary role was providing internet service provider. So this was people dialing up on their phones to connect the internet. So I was connecting people with dos. Windows three, windows three, one. Mm-hmm. Connecting those folks to the internet, which, could be a little bit of a challenge. And it's through your modem and your phone. And so all I had, obviously video wasn't there, so all I had was my voice. And in that particular structured environment was you know, numbers matter in outsource call center, you've gotta hit your target numbers. Yeah. Right. So you've got your key forms, indicators, so on and so forth. So I had basically seven minutes to kind of get on the phone. Get control of the call, figure out what's going on. And that was my average talk time to get that person connected. So most of these people barely touched the computer before. Definitely didn't understand how a motive works. Yeah. But I needed them to trust me if they didn't trust me. Obviously people aren't gonna. Do what I tell them to do. So developing that trust very quickly. Being able to speak being able to communicate understanding, empathizing is probably the thing I learned most, right? And getting into the head of somebody else is at the under end of that call, what do I need to do to make this work? Right? What do they need to hear? What do I need to say? How do I demonstrate expertise in a hurry? And I've used that particular skill very much in every aspect of my life. I can imagine. Yeah, particularly the empathy aspect of it, it's one of the primary things I do, even in my roles now, being more senior, IT leadership is that, understanding. Okay here's what's going on. in some cases might be a cyber incident where, the company's scared. They may be out of business as a result of this. How do I calm the situation down? establish, expertise and authority and control and say, okay, here's what we're gonna do to solve this particular problem. I, myself, my team, whoever else is there, we're on it. And we are the experts and we'll solve this problem and you're gonna be okay. That's really all everybody wants to hear is, yes, you understand for me where my problems are and you're gonna make it okay. I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm gonna do, and I will work to make sure that they're gonna be okay. that sense of integrity has always been a big deal. But, I will be the one that, you call some cases it's a big brother kind of a, a thing where I will protect others. Is a pretty strong, motivation. It's interesting, I'm the youngest of my family, but I've always taken that persona to some degree of being that that big brother that somebody in trouble can turn to me and everything will be okay. That's super powerful in your role in tech because in the early days, trying to get people to connect to the internet or do anything in their computer just on voice, like now you might be able to take control of their system. Absolutely. Or at least you can see them. Whereas to just do it by voice is super difficult. And then as you get more senior, and obviously tech is so embedded in our lives, so when something goes wrong, most people are in a panic situation at that point, so to be able to have that empathy and I'm gonna take care of you, that big brother energy as you were saying. It's really helpful. Yeah, and it's generally served me quite well. I mean, I've got myself into overextending a few times and outside my scope, it's not always been perfect. And I've definitely have tripped myself up a few times through my career. And, I've pivoted several times throughout, but primarily the empathy goes anywhere. Mm-hmm. Right? And the ability to communicate goes anywhere.. Interesting enough, some of the folks that I've worked with over the years that did have, computer science, computer engineering degrees, and, they learned what they learned in university, but the ability to learn new technology, which is kind of paramount as technology changes literally every minute. You've gotta be able to stay, current and you've gotta be able to stay up to date and you've gotta understand what's coming over the next, four or five years. it's been interesting to see people that are 20, 30 years younger than I am, who can't learn new technology and really can't stay, abreast where I've been, pretty passionate about it and constantly learning and picking up new pieces of technology and, seeing trends, I've been actually quite good at understanding what those new technical trends will be. And, I put a lot of effort into, learning and staying abreast and knowing what, all the big companies are doing and seeing what those, really new interesting pieces, technology will come. And yeah, like that ability to learn. So like learning to learn, which, I think happens ideally happens in university, but it, not everyone has that skillset. I think that's super important, especially in technology. As you said, it is moving so fast. You mentioned you've had some pivots along the way. Maybe can you tell me a little bit of that journey and some of those pivots on the route to where you are today? Yeah. I was referring to earlier where I became more involved and process things. I've taken my career all over the place. I've taken some consulting roles where I was, providing. Technical leadership, but also just process leadership and, building out these giant PowerPoint decks for, some of large financial institutions. Just talking about process, I found out very quickly, I, I really like to lead. I really like, manage the team and, but no, I have been that individual computer several times through my career. In some cases I've been much more on, running might be stats or it might be more of a technical support kind of role, and not necessarily manage technical teams. When I moved from Ottawa where I started off, I was running my own business. I was running a call center there. Working in that kind of environment wasn't sustainable. I'm like, what am I gonna do when I'm 60? what am I gonna do when I'm in my, late fifties kind of thing? And I've had this in the back of my head throughout. Of not being tied to any one company. So my father worked for the same company for 46 years. You know, he was forced to retire. He is got some lung issues I just didn't want to be trapped. Right. I didn't wanna sell my soul to the company store. If you wanna go way back to an old country song, is that, I will work as hard as I possibly can. I will put forth the effort. I will fully integrate into an organization, some cases my own detriment. And my personal life has suffered as a result throughout that. But I will, Reevaluate on a constant basis saying, is it worth it or not? Do I still want to be here? Are my values, uh, still align with this organization? Mm-hmm. so some cases I've just, no, I'm not happy where this company is going. I'm not happy with the leadership choices. I'm gonna go somewhere else. And in many cases, I've taken completely different roles, whether it be, like I said, in process whether it be in a sales role whether it's been just a different organization, but taking on, more infrastructure, less call center. You know, whatever it happens to be. Something sounds interesting to me and a lot of cases it depended more on the people that I was working with than the work I was doing. And that became a huge piece where I still look for, I probably need to respect the person that I'm working with. and I think that's the key. I have a certain level of self-respect and I definitely prefer to respect others as well. But I need to do that in order to put forth the level of effort that usually is required. From most of my career, my work day doesn't really start even though I'm showing up at eight o'clock in the morning mm-hmm. I'm going meetings throughout the day and answering meals and prepping for that, five o'clock end of day, so I can start whatever the change is. Then, in some cases it might be Friday night at five and I'm going to be up and in front of a computer until 8:00 AM Monday morning it goes live and then I've gotta handle the post go live. So, you know, 10, 11 o'clock on a Monday morning after being awake for 72 hours, I'm, gotta go get some kind of sleep.'cause they had to get back in the office either this afternoon or prep him for the Tuesday or Wednesday change. So putting in those hours sitting in front of a screen. And if I believe the company will do the right thing, then great. If something pivots and the organization change, well, they're making choices about what they're going to do. I will then make choices about what I want to do, and I'm gonna own my choices, right? I'm gonna be conscious and very systemic, I guess, about those choices. You know, to run a SWOT analysis on whatever it is I need to do. Do I need to stay here? No. Alright. If I don't, then let me move on. But always keeping that in the back of my head of. What's the right thing for the company, but also what's the right thing for me. If I feel company's not doing those things, then I'm like, okay. I'm happy to pivot and move into something entirely new role, entirely new career. Having confidence in my ability, Okay. I had that setback. Let me put my head down. I will figure it out. I will move forward. I will find another role, and I bring value. and just knowing that has really driven me quite hard. Learn from my mistakes, obviously. I've, I've made some doozies over the years, uh, and I definitely have fallen down. But, it doesn't matter that you fall down seven times. It matters when you get up eight. Right. How do you find that will, and that drive to say, okay. You learn from that mistake you learn from others. It's real wisdom if you're lucky. But I'm gonna pick myself up and, be open to opportunities. I was having this conversation with somebody, and they said, wow, you're really lucky. And I'm like, well, I guess if preparation meets opportunity, then sure. I'll take lucky that way. And I think that's so important, just being open to opportunities and what you were saying about like kindness and things like building relationships, that's so important. But also you're very clear on your values and strategic of, continuing to evaluate, okay, the company might have to make this decision. I might do a SWOT analysis for myself about is this still the right place? Is it the right opportunity for me? Then you're evaluating still on, I wanna work with people I like working with that I respect, and for a company that's going to do the right thing. So that's a very clear set of values that you are using to evaluate those decisions and opportunities. So that doesn't sound like luck at all. It sounds very, maybe not always consciously intentional, but very intentional. A hundred percent. thank you for really synthesizing what I was attempting to articulate. Being very intentional about what I'm doing and, working hard, but also working smartly. I think a, foundational piece for me is really treating my life somewhat like a puzzle or some cases, or treating my life like an incident. Okay, this incident happened, right? This is not what I designed. how do I put this back together again? Right. what does great look like? And, and trying to visualize five years from now, 10 years from now, what is it that, I see myself doing? And just treating the whole world like it's my teacher, I could teach myself quite a bit, but really, somebody refers themself or I'm that I'm a self-made person. I'm like no, that's just, that's just nobody has maybe even lived in the woods in the forest, had no. Parents or anything. I guess maybe that person counts, but if you live in a society, everybody's out there has some impact on your life, I've had a lot of mentors over the years that have meant the world to me. And really had massive impact on my life. That listening to what somebody had to say and understanding that, well, if I'm trying to do these things, other people must also try to do these things. They're trying to help me. How can I then. Listen to what they have to say and figure out how to really implement that. But also try to be that person, right? How can I help? And that's usually the first words out of my mouth when I meet somebody. How can I help? How can I be of service? And very much derive a lot of my satisfaction and what I wanna do in the world by coming through it for how can I be of service. And I've turned down jobs and I've not necessarily pursued. That C-suite which, initially part of my career, that's where I was driving to. Mm-hmm. I had that level of ambition, but I figured out that's all I wanna do all day. I was much more interested in being hands-on and in the weeds and, working with a small team that's where I found my passion and my joy. It wasn't necessarily doing budgetary meetings, although I still end up doing quite a bit of that. When I'm giving somebody feedback, they ask me what should I do? Right? What is my career choices? I said, well, figure out in your current job what you love to do and do more of that. Yes. And, you know, whatever that happens to be. If you want to be on a boat, then go be on a boat if you wanna, you know, fly planes and go fly planes. There are many different roles within that, if you love planes but are scared to fly, to be an air traffic controller, whatever, that kind of works. But find some kind of assets that you got some passion for and pursue that, and recognize that, the dream job that you have may not be your actual dream job. Right? It could very well be that, some offshoot of that or, or something you never would've thought of. You know, the job that I do now and of most of the jobs that I've done through my career, didn't exist when I was in grade school. Didn't exist when I was in high school. Didn't really exist when I was, going through university. so these roles, in some cases I've created for myself and some cases I've just kinda stepped in and did them. But definitely the world has evolved and continues to evolve. When you look at, some of the new technologies that's coming with AI and so on and so forth, just you can't know that Exactly. I think that's such great advice what are the things you're enjoying about your job? How can you do more of that? How can you lean into it? And that can pivot you. Can take you down different routes. But as you said, not all jobs exist today that will exist in the future. So just keep building on those things that you are enjoying and leaning into them. And then the other thing you said I think is so important is, a lot of people think this successful career is about climbing the ladder, but actually you get to define what success looks like. Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily mean being in the C-Suite. It's like, you know what? I really like this type of work. I'm passionate about it. I can really add value here. Not to say you can't add value at that higher level, it's just you don't like it as much. But un understanding yourself what your values are, try to hold to those as much as I can, you know? Yeah. You know, everybody's got some good days and bad days, but, understanding for me how much was enough. And what was that? What did I want? You know, people talk about worth life balance. they look to the organization they're at and say, okay, you're working me too hard, or, this is happening, or that's happening. In some cases, you know, there is some validity to that, but in other cases, it's about your own choices, right? Mm-hmm. If you're at a company that you know is pushing your work-life balance and you're not happy with that, well, what choices are you making to ensure that you've got that. Are you taking time to read a book? Are you, meeting with your family? Are you meeting with old friends? Are you taking that time off? You have the right to turn to disconnect. Right. Are you using that? Right. Do you leave your. You know, do you have a work phone and a personal phone? Which I do, right? And I will leave my work phone off to the side and understand, my workday is done. I've done what I can, and now I'm going to go away. Not, not be tied to that. But it made very conscious choices about those things. So, yes, it costs so hard a little bit to have my own personal phone, but yeah, that matters to me. I've been, I have been on vacation enough that sitting on a beach and my wife and I, both our cell phones are our laptops while we're sitting in the beach working away, I'm like I've paid a significant amount of money to be here on this beach, and I, you wanna enjoy it. I'm burnt out, but yet, right now I'm sitting here working on this laptop and unfortunately I've worked to entire vacations like that. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Right? That, that there I am not that valuable. I am not that important. I'm like this needs to change. Yeah. And recognize those behaviors.

Mike: 25:36

And so the same choice I apply to what role I'm doing, what organization I, I'm attaching myself to you know, try to set. Setting those boundaries, whether it be hey, I have a right to, to disconnect. Mm-hmm. Which is tough in it. So, at least my understanding of the Ontario labor laws here, where I live, is that, it's a pretty structured, where there's a lot of labor laws that are put in place to ensure, people aren't overworked. They have the right to disconnect and getting paid overtime and so on and so forth. And uh, and, and most of what I've seen from the Labor Code, it says, except for it.

Megan: 26:10

It's so hard in it. You were talking earlier about release weekends and the work that goes into that. And not only actually implementing the release over the weekend, but being on call and needing to still be there Monday morning, even though you put in the whole weekend because once everyone else comes in and starts using it, you have to make sure it's working and and. Technology is so embedded in everything we do. So something goes down at midnight. Well, still needs to be fixed. It can't just wait for 8:00 AM

Mike: 26:44

Correct. And you talked about, you know, nines right? The number of nines, right? Oh, uh, we were, we're up 99% of the time. 99.99. Right. Four nines. But the systems you need in order to get to that level of, without maintenance and without downtime and mm-hmm. Levels of redundancy, in order to put that in place, it requires a tremendous amount of thought and planning. Certainly there's cost, but somebody's paying a bill for that, but at the end of the day, somebody needs to go and do that work to put those systems in place

Megan: 27:10

Yeah. To

Mike: 27:10

ensure it works and tests and so on and so forth. So it's not a matter of just paying the bill, somebody's actually doing that work. So we not about the right to disconnect, that's a lot of hours of putting those systems in place. And when something is down. Nobody cares about, Hey, I'm in overtime, or, I've got, I've got plans tonight. I've got dinner plans. I'm getting my parents, it's my birthday, it's my anniversary. I've had this vacation book for two years. Nobody cares. They're just like, we've gotta get our systems back up. Or the company, is looking at millions of losses. Now some companies have worked for, recognize that, and have compensated for those things. Mm-hmm. But in many cases, that just hasn't been the case or that just execution. Well, you work in it and they shrugged their shoulders and kind of walk away. Um, like, hey, that's not, there's a sense of fairness and justice. Talking to that kind of big brother energy, I was kinda giving off. I like that term. Is that, I'm trying to be fair as much as I can, and I recognize that this is important, that the backbone of most companies is their technology.

Megan: 28:12

Yeah.

Mike: 28:12

Um, but it still doesn't give you the right to treat me unfairly or have that expectation, if nothing else, just a thank you would be great. There's actually a meme that, shows a CEO looking over it. Everything's working perfectly. What am I paying you for? And then the other side of it, everything's broken. What am I paying you for? And it's very difficult to win within that, operational IT environment.

Megan: 28:33

So it's really important to create those boundaries. Make sure you're taking care of yourself as a human and not burning out and that is really important'cause it is a really hard job and can have crazy hours

Mike: 28:50

it's, uh, we've treated like a fireman then, frequently their shift, right? They live there for whatever it is, four days or five days, and, they go off, they go off shift and, it is a life or deficit scenario, so it's hard to compare to that, but at least there's usually some days off. In a lot of cases, just with working in in operations, it just hasn't been. So just a little bit of a, an insight there to what it's like to be leadership in operations and what those expectations are. But really comes down to setting those boundaries and what, if those boundaries are being broken in your own sense of your code or your ethics, whatever that looks like, if you mm-hmm. If you've gone to the point where, no, this is not a place where I feel values me, it's not the place that I, value back. If I'm not respected, if I'm not, treated with kindness then what am I doing here? And having in many cases the courage to move forward. And understanding that, it's the, safe choice is to stay where the you are and what I guess I've tried to learn is how to get comfortable being uncomfortable. no company is perfect for sure. running your own business also not perfect. Instead of having a boss, you end up with all your customers are your boss. So, that, that's not necessarily a perfect scenario either. You know, you could try to have amusement, you could try to have a good time. You could try to build, a sense of camaraderie within the folks you're working with. But at the end of the day if you're not happy. Okay. What is it gonna take to make you happy and is it an internal piece where, I'm unhappy because I've got other things going on in my world because I haven't figured out who I am. I haven't figured what those things are. If it's you that needs fixing work on it. If it's the company needs fixing work on it. You're not gonna get it perfectly. You're gonna backslide, you're gonna make mistakes, right? that's a learning process, right? But as long as you're in the fight, as long as you're trying, then I'm right there with you. If you're just saying, well, that's just, I am who I am. Just learn to live with it. I'm like, well, I'm not okay with that, right? Whether it be a person or an organization, whatever it is. If you are unwilling to try to improve, if you're unwilling to push yourself or the company to be better. And people will ask me, you know, what, what's your New Year's resolution? What do you wanna work on this year? I'm like, I really don't do that. I, to be honest, every day I just try to be better.

Megan: 31:09

Yeah. It's just like in how you approach the day. So you don't need to set something at the beginning of the year.

Mike: 31:14

I better a constantly, whether I be, spiritually you know, physically, mentally, financially, whatever the kind of aspect is. I wanna work on those things. I try to work on them all every day, but to some degree, I'll focus, might be a week or a day or, maybe a longer period of time, but. I would constantly iterate. I spent some time in Japan recently, and I was introduced this week called the Kaizen and just this ability to iterate and

Megan: 31:40

continuous improvement.

Mike: 31:42

That has been a driving force for me for a really long time. How can I continuously improve, whether it be the role of organization. Oh, like I said, my mental health, my physical health, yeah. Whatever that is. I'm in the, I'm in the fight, right? So I'm not always gonna get it. Right. I'm gonna make some mistakes. I'm gonna fall into some old habits, but if my desire, is to be better to make those improvements, there'll be, one step forward, some cases, three steps back. But I'm gonna keep moving forward until I've made that sense of accomplishment. and then celebrate those wins kind of looking

Megan: 32:16

at it more holistically than just like individual metrics. Yeah. I love that.

Mike: 32:20

Right.

Megan: 32:21

but being intent about

Mike: 32:21

it, I think is really the conscious choice is that I have a sense of control of these things.

Megan: 32:27

Yeah. Well, I think we all, we all do. And what you were saying about it can feel more comfortable to stay, but actually you're trading one kind of comfort for another. So yes, it's comforting. Even if you hate your job, it's comforting to stay because it's known. So you know you don't like it, but you know what it is. You know what to expect. But you are trading that comfort of the known. Or something that actually might be a better work-life balance or that you enjoy more or whatever, which is that comfort. So it's actually a trade off you're making and the price of that is sometime in the unknown.

Mike: 33:05

Very much. Yeah. I think that's really

Megan: 33:06

interesting.

Mike: 33:07

Yeah, and I've always been proud of my choices. I haven't always had made a great choice. In some cases I've made some bad choices, but at least I've been proud of it that I made one.

Megan: 33:16

Yeah.

Mike: 33:16

Where I've kind of tried really hard not to be a victim. That I'm making conscious choices to, do things as much as I can. The world of some cases is not a great place. I've had some things posed upon me.

Megan: 33:28

Yeah.

Mike: 33:29

I'm very aware that, that's the case,

Megan: 33:31

but

Mike: 33:32

I've tried as much as I can to make good choices and to understand that, yeah, I, I have some degree of control of these things, particularly came to my career. if I don't wanna be here, I don't have to be here. I will find another way. I will land on my feet and at the of the day, I think people will help me. People have been kind to me. I've tried to reverse, been kind back and pay it forward many more times. There's a saying, that you're not a leader until you've created a leader that can create other leaders.

Megan: 34:00

Mm-hmm. But

Mike: 34:01

you know, are you, can you look in the mirror and be proud of yourself and understand that you took that risk, that you took that role that. You never would've even imagined existed when you were in grade school.

Megan: 34:12

Along with that thinking.

Mike: 34:14

Yeah.

Megan: 34:14

If you think back to 16-year-old, you who maybe wanted to be a history teacher and coach rugby, what do you think that 16-year-old version of you would think of where you are today?

Mike: 34:27

Yeah. From where I sit right now, I was not even a fantasy of where I currently live and the life that I've seen, the places I've been, and the roles we go now, tremendous amount of work to get there. But I proud of the work that I did. But, if if I was to go back and talk to, and I frequently think about these things to go talk to that, 11-year-old kid, 12-year-old kid. So I have a couple pictures on my wall above my desk, One is of me in the Roman Coliseum a number of years ago, and I got to go and I first walked up to it and I I was afraid to touch it and be real. It was a pivotal moment in my life and the fact that I got there, people I know didn't get to go to Europe, was just mm-hmm. Kinda a, you know, like going to the moon kind of thing. And, I understood the history of what happened in that building. I've walked the same places that, the Roman all legions watt and, the history here was overwhelming to me. I was completely overwhelmed by that moment. And I was afraid to touch Chris. It was gonna be real. I was actually a little emotional, and my wife's like, just go ahead and touch it. And she had to prod me to do that. And I did. And I have that picture on my wall, when I'm having a bad day when things aren't going smooth, I have to think back to that moment. I'm like, if I could do that, then what else can I do? It's amazing, right? I feel like a superhero. And beside that as a picture of me as a 12-year-old kid holding my com 64, back in 1982. And like sitting there, my jam was on, on Christmas morning. My parents got this for me and they had to go through quite a bit of, they got it. And once I got it, that was that was my gateway drug, if you will. That kind of really got me into stuff and, really got into it pretty hard pretty fast. And it was great. But I look up at those, I think about pivotal moments in my life, and look for perspective and look to, for, okay, let me look back. What have I learned? Reevaluates, what's going on? Yeah. And what changes do I need to make? I'm always driving for contentment. Yeah. And, uh, even in my home now, I frequently have gas and, I treat my house a bit of a, as a destination so folks come, they stay, we feed, we have a good bottle of wine, we hang out and my gift is to them, or what I try to do is to give contentment. Be here, be at peace. That's lovely. Feel good about yourself, feel good about the world. You know, yes, there, there are problems over the place, but try to make yourself a little bit of a sanctuary so you can just sit, have good conversation and know that you were cared for. And that's really what I try to give people as much as I possibly can and be of that service, make somebody feel that they are cared for, that I am here to help you. That, I'm in your corner, I'm in the fight. You know that I got you. That's so nice. And how can I do more of that? And that what drives me? When I do go away, I do like to travel. So I'm sitting on a beach somewhere or I'm, sitting in a cafe somewhere. I find that distance really does get perspective, both physically as well as specifically intellectually, is that to use those times to reflect. And then say, how do I move forward from here? How am I going to, to really make the changes that I wanna make so my life and the lives around me are better?

Megan: 37:28

Mm-hmm.

Mike: 37:28

And I have that power to change the world. You know, Hey, you can't change the world. like, why not? Yeah what does it take, change the world, right? That that butterfly effect of, that leader who creates a leader who creates fellow leaders, right? What does that look like? How do you do those things, right? Yeah. Some cases it takes a little bit of attention, but mostly just takes the belief that you can't, right? And how can I change the real on this podcast today feeling that I can change the world? I could be of service, right?

Megan: 37:57

who knows who? We'll listen to it and be inspired. And like all these things, they seem small, but to your point, there's that butterfly effect you can influence and change the world. And in line with that, thinking taking that forward, what is your vision and hope for the future?

Mike: 38:17

It's interesting, when I see the next five, 10, 20 years down the path, a lot of, traditional roles that we've seen for so long are really being replaced by, machines, whether it be AI or, robots and so on and so forth. We've seen a lot of that. A lot of manufacturing jobs have been replaced with that, but a lot of white color jobs are now being replaced by ai. A lot of coding jobs, which were so hot for so long and now it's being replaced by a sheen and, things are done in seconds and, a high quality for the most part. But that continued to evolve. And, some things that came out recently as, the kinda a universal agreed upon salary, that mm-hmm. Corporations pay this significant level of tax and the rest of us are more free to pursue other things right. Of, value in a different way. Where we don't necessarily have to, produce a product or produce code, but we're, it'd be a return

Megan: 39:03

to community. And some of that,

Mike: 39:07

I definitely think so. Societies have risen a lot on the ability for, people to communicate, you know? Farming and we really evolved to be, living in cities for the most part. We've seen for, our population go from, 89% agricultural to now, less than 1% in a lot of cases. Mm-hmm. People are getting back into growing the food and, trying to be of service from that perspective, to more healthy style of living. Hopefully you'll see the arts and you'll see things evolve and as much as I'm afraid of change, right. As I think everybody is to some degree. Yeah. I also looking forward to embracing it, these new tools have been amazing for me. as I mentioned, when we kicked this off, but you know, it was diagnosed as dyslexic and I didn't really understand that, certainly when I was younger. And, ability to write and that's where my dyslexia manifests itself. And, I bring this point up is just to say that, I've used, chat, GPT or Copi, whatever the case may be. Different tools for different things to I had the ideas that I had the thoughts. Yeah. But being able to put pen and paper was really difficult for me. But using these tools and, working with folks and the ability to do written communication through these tool sets ha has really so expanded. And I now, thought of as somebody who's a brilliant communicator and I've been given a tremendous amount of feedback about my ability to do these things. Oh, I am using that tool set, but at the end of the day, it's my voice. Yeah. And it's my thoughts and, it's my kind of intention. am I being deliberate about how I wanna set hey things. And, I'm still editing it to suit my needs. But just so much faster for me.

Megan: 40:42

Yeah.

Mike: 40:42

It really allows that kind of ability. When I look at that kind of tool set, I'm like, okay, here's these military force multiplier, right? Mm-hmm. I can be so much more capable by using this tool set. So what's gonna happen, the speed of change we've gone through, how these tool sets are allowing things to move even faster. I guess I'm a glass half, full kind of guy. we also just need, to see what's coming down the future. Yeah. I think we will be better. I think we will progress and I think, yeah, society will evolve in an amazing way. Back when I was in school, if you will, many of these jobs didn't exist. The jobs over the next 20 years. I cannot fathom, but be completely new, but see if they're, yeah. And how those things will work in the hope is that these tools sets my personal opinion, allow more balanced society where, the ability to progress past your station, which was something I heard as a kid kind of thing, right? Like, oh, you're, you will never progress past this and that those opportunities just don't exist to you because of, the household you were raised in. Yeah. You were limited as result. Yeah. There's

Megan: 41:48

definitely the opportunity level, the playing field, so to speak, whether it's, helping with something that's. So like writing is difficult for you and there's new tools that are making that easy and allowing you to share your voice, more quickly. As like one example, there is so much opportunity for that. I guess we'll have to wait and see a little bit if society embraces the opportunity in the most positive and beneficial ways because there is so much opportunity for that.

Mike: 42:23

Yeah, that definitely my hope, even this kind of concept, right? I remember I was, a small child listening to AM radio and, it was a big deal if you ended up on the radio for some reason. Like it was such an exciting thing. You know, now look at this concept of podcasts and who knows how many now

Megan: 42:37

anyone with a laptop create their own

Mike: 42:40

podcast, right? This exactly this is available to billions of people. What is happening in the next 5, 10, 20 years? there's a great, documentary, the science of, of Star Trek and how much that has driven a lot of technology, but like, Hey, that was cool. Let me see if I can invent that.

Megan: 42:57

Yeah.

Mike: 42:57

So if those things are inspiring and those things have driven people to invent and iterate and create. What are the things we can do now to be that driving force to the next version of iteration and creation and

Megan: 43:11

mm-hmm.

Mike: 43:11

Bringing hopefully more just society but certainly, that's my hope anyway,

Megan: 43:16

I love that. And maybe we'll have to touch base in a couple years and see where we're at. I think that would be amazing. Mike, thank you so much. I love your whole perspective on learning and how you are intentional about your opportunities and intentional about creating boundaries and even going back to that big brother energy of when you were talking about boundaries, the other thing I was thinking of because you're a leader. It's so important to have good boundaries as a leader, to be the role model for your team I just love your whole thought process about that. I think it's really amazing. So thank you for taking the time this morning. Thank you so much for sharing.

Mike: 43:58

thanks for the opportunity. I like the concept of what you're trying to accomplish is that, there's no straight line path. Mm-hmm. I think for anybody, embrace the opportunity, embrace the change, be intentional and, you don't know five years now, 10 years now, 20 years, hundred percent now, what roles will exist? What jobs will exist? You know, what will be there but preparation and opportunity make those things happen. Maybe create your own luck, And, I think you know, what you are trying to accomplish is really, is exemplifying that concept of, there will be change. Enjoy it. Enjoy the journey. Yeah, is, how of how I thought about it. So I appreciate the conversation as well. Hopefully this communication, this conversation, and this concept. Really help somebody. And that's all I

Megan: 44:44

ask. Yeah. I think it will. And that's my hope for the whole podcast, as you said of, journeys aren't straight line. So just for people to share their journeys and I think it's so powerful. So thank you for being part of that and sharing your journey.

Mike: 44:59

Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you. You

Megan: 45:02

too.

45:02

It was so interesting chatting with Mike about his journey and the lessons he learned along the way. A few things I took away from our conversation were first, your differences can be your strengths. Having a degree in history may be unusual for an IT leader, but as Mike set himself, it helped set him apart and allowed him to develop skills that helped him in his career, like strong communication skills. Second, focus on growth. Mike follows his curiosity and his continually learning and looking to the future of how ID is evolving, which allows him to evolve with it and continue to add to his problem solving skills and third boundaries. Over time, Mike has learned to create boundaries for himself, whether that is turning the work phone off on vacation, to not being afraid to make a change if a role or organization is no longer aligned with his values. Lastly, Mike shared so much great advice, but one piece that really stood out to me was to lean into what interests you and find a way. If you're interested in planes, for example, but are afraid to fly, there are other options like air traffic control. Thank you for listening to the unexpected career podcast, please follow, share and rate on your favorite podcast provider. The unexpected career podcast is produced, edited and hosted by me, Megan Dunford. See you next week.