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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Getting Yourself in the Right Place to Succeed: A Few Key Points 7-30-25
00:05:44
In this episode, Scott Becker shares insights on how long-term success often stems from finding a professional environment where you’re happy and can thrive.
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Scott Becker
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. Today's discussion is getting yourself in the right place to succeed. A few key points. So here's the discussion today and it comes out of watching so many young professionals and old professionals trying to find the right spot. And I'll give an anecdote first and then I'll move to the, to the core concept here. But the first anecdote is when I started my career, large, high pressure law firm and I was miserable. I did good enough work, I did fine there, I was doing fine. But after three years I was like, this is a debacle. Personally, professionally, I can't see this being sustainable for the long term. Just a horrible, horrible situation. So that was sort of the first experience in work. My second real experience of work was I joined a law firm called Ross and Hart, now merged into the firm that I work at now, McGuire Woods. And the concept yourself in the right place to succeed. Get yourself in the right spot where people are happy, where people are thriving. Then I found that you'll figure out a way to thrive and find your right position and you'll, you'll thrive. And there's a lot of lessons with if you put yourself in the right position to thrive. I've got a close, close colleague who I won't name right now, but we name often but, but did this wonderful thing. A brilliant person, went to a great law school. I think he went to Emory Law School, ended up repositioning himself into sort of this, this tax field which is highly competitive, but not as crazily competitive as some other areas of law. And he found a place where he just excels in every single way. Another close colleague, you know, is a, is a sports agent who is also tremendous and put himself in the right spot where I think he ultimately represent mostly college basketball, college football coaches. But he's been doing it for so long before that was a sought after thing to, to represent. The sort of thing to represent when he really first came up was start basketball players, start football players, start baseball players. But he ended up evolving to where he ended up being the absolute leader in this area of representing college football coaches. College basketball coaches ended up being just great at it. And that area came around to where now he's hitting it out of the park because he found a sweet spot in the area that was right. It's from the right place that he happy he wasn't competing at the time against the most driven agents, the most crazy agents, most, this, the most sought after clients, but. But he found his sweet spot, the place where he was happy. And really. So similarly in law, I ended up in a niche in health care and then in health care media company, but. But similarly, I didn't compete against the most complex litigation firms, the biggest corporate securities firms, but found a niche that I was happy in and really worked and excelled. And when I look at kids coming out, it's not necessarily going from the most prestigious job, the most this job, the most that job, but if you put yourself on a spot where you've got structure and you're happy and thriving day to day, you're likely to find what is likely to also be success, you know, side by side with that, because you're at a place where you could thrive and you're happy. I'll go down this path a little bit further. So many people coming out of a professional career and starting a professional career set a low ceiling for themselves or set a high ceiling for themselves. And what I'd say to you is find a place where you're thriving and happy and you don't have to side on the ceilings. Whether they're high or low or not, it really doesn't matter. I look at so many people that have ultimately pursued the path that works for them. That's the right spot for them. I've got another colleague, again, I won't name him, but. But he helps to run a real estate investment firm, you know, and it's not Blackstone, but he's done a great job of positioning himself with where they're doing the kind of work they and his partner excel at and do great at. And people love them for it, and they just do terrific at it. No, they're not competing with Blackstone or the major REITs, but they're doing a great job and they've got a great business of investing in a niche where they're happy. And this is a person who is a wonderful person. God knows, hard to believe that he could work for anybody but himself. And that's similar to these other guys as well. But they found niches where they really excel and can do. Could do great. And they're, quite frankly, I think, quite happy at what they do. So the lesson for today, and it's really a lesson I learned and watch from these three leaders, is if you can find the right position for yourself where you're thriving and you're happy, then the sky's the limit. I mean, in a lot of ways, when I look at these three leaders we've mentioned the guy in the tax real estate business, the guy in the real estate investment business, the guy in the sports agent business, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and in a lot of ways with their personal talents. When you measure their personal talents, they have exceeded against all odds. I say that, of course, in jest to get a, to get a rise out of the three of them, but I do look at this professionally. If you find the right spot where you're comfortable, where you're happy and you can get in a groove, then ultimately you could decide what you're ceiling, what your floor is, what the sky, where the limits are at, and so forth and so on. But if you don't get yourself in a spot that you're comfortable and happy, then you can't really thrive. You could thrive for a period of time, but you can't really thrive in the. So you got to find that spot where you're comfortable, where you could thrive, and then you can figure out how to push yourself and what you want to achieve, what you want to go after. Thank you for listening to the Vector Business Podcast, the Becker Private Equity Podcast, and thank you to Chanel Bunger, the best in the business. Thank you.