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#194 - You Can't Take It With You

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I always wonder about people who sign up for newsletters with a work email.

Not the standard Gmail, or an old school Hotmail address. Not a hip firstname@yourname.com. But a good, old-fashioned @currentemployer.com.

I mean, I get it: we're at work all the time, and we're in our inboxes all day. And these are newsletters we're talking about, not cures for cancer.

But as time passes, I think about this group more and more: do they not worry about, you know...leaving one day, and not having access to that email?
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In this climate, and with this rate of change, it strikes me as a curious signal.

More than curious; almost retro. A throwback to a time when work was the center of our lives, and having one employer for a long time felt possible, and normal.

You can’t take it with you

I loved my time at Netflix. I’ve written a lot about it; what I did, what I learned, how those years transformed me. I look back with gratitude, and if I’m honest, some regret too.

I spent five years there with opinions I didn’t share, stories I didn’t codify, relationships I didn’t cultivate, and curiosities I neglected. It was five years of accumulation, but not enough conversion.

I was learning, growing, and gaining all kinds of experience, but I wasn’t doing enough to turn that experience into anything portable; something that was mine and would last beyond the job itself.

Then I left. I got the logo on my resume. It still sits on my LinkedIn profile.

But everything that had felt like my career identity -- my title, the brand, the glow of a company people talked about -- stayed behind. The people who knew my work, my judgment, and my track record were still inside Netflix.

And to the outside world, I was starting over.

Not from zero, of course. I had skills, a network and a plan to build TalentStories. But I was starting from scratch. Again. In ways I didn’t need to be.

That’s what I understand better now: I'd built a career, yes, but I hadn't converted enough of it into something I could take with me.

The multiplier

Here’s what I appreciate now that I didn’t used to:

A corporate brand is a multiplier, and a tailwind. It signals quality, scale, and legitimacy. It opens doors and gives you benefit of the doubt.

But it also belongs to the company. When you leave, you get the name on your CV, but you lose the lift.

Which makes the more interesting question not whether your current job is good, prestigious, stable, or even meaningful. The question is what, exactly, you are building now, while that tailwind is still behind you.

I'm talking about the intentional conversion of borrowed leverage into assets you actually own: stories. Relationships. Visible work. Community. Proof of what you've learned and how you think. The kind of things that travel with you when you say goodbye to a place.

Not job security -- career security

Job security and career security are two very different things.

Job security comes from an employer. Career security is something you build yourself, around the edges of a job you hold.
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This distinction matters more than ever because job security is disappearing.

It's happening quickly. Over the last several years, we've all seen smart, talented, credentialed people get restructured, reorg'd, and riffed out of roles we thought were safe.
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Many of them move to another traditional role. Others discover that their next step is something less defined, and more entrepreneurial than they'd expected.

But either way, those who build portable assets -- stories, relationships, visible work, a reputation or brand external to a company's -- attract more opportunity, and navigate the transition with more leverage.
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No one said this to me during my Netflix years. No one told me: the leverage you have right now is borrowed, and the window is finite. Build from this now. Not after.

So I'm saying it

And I think a lot of people in great roles might not be able to hear it. After all, it can feel like a dissonant message when things are going well. (Witness: signing up for a newsletter with a work email!).

So I'm saying it here: now is the time to prepare for change.

You're building on borrowed leverage. The brand, the platform, the stories, the momentum of meaningful work at a place that recognizes it. That leverage is real, but a lot of it belongs to the organization. And the window in which you can convert it into something you own is open to you.

Build support and community before you need them. Craft stories before you have to tell them without the logo behind you. Hone the judgment and self-awareness to help you steer.

Not out of panic, or as performative personal branding. But as the intentional work of turning what you have into something that you can take with you.

I know my journey looks different from the corporate path. But I'm not sure the gap between what I do and what many others will do is as big as it seems. The curve is shrinking, and more people are going to build something of their own.

So hug the job. But hedge, too. Build career security. This is the best time to start.

Thanks for reading and exploring with me -- and have a great end of the week! 🙏

Aki