Announcing - Career Growth Accelerator, Episode Zero - Getting Out of Your Own Way

8 snips

Dec 18, 2025

Career growth often stalls from internal barriers. Ego can distort self-worth, preventing honest self-assessment. Learn to dissociate your identity from your job title for clearer diagnostics. A thought experiment encourages you to analyze your situation as you would for a friend, reducing bias. Discover why true growth advice focuses on understanding what happened, not just seeking reassurance. Overcoming these hurdles is vital for advancing your career and achieving your aspirations.

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INSIGHT

Ego Blocks Honest Career Diagnosis

Our ego commonly blocks career progress by attaching self-worth to job outcomes.
Jonathan Cutrell shows this prevents honest diagnosis and learning from setbacks.

ADVICE

Disconnect Identity From Career Facts

Disconnect your self-worth from your job title and treat your position as a neutral fact.
Use a distancing thought experiment to diagnose what happened and why, not to justify your value.

ADVICE

Analyze Your Career As An Outsider

View your situation as if it were an acquaintance's story to remove ego from analysis.
Ask "what happened and why?" and focus exclusively on diagnostic evidence.

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This episode kicks off the Career Growth Accelerator series, focused on the specific hurdles faced by mid-to-senior level engineers, managers, and leaders who are looking to move to the next level. Before diving into specific strategies, I’m addressing the fundamental prerequisite for real growth: getting out of your own way. We often block our own progress because our ego conflates our self-worth with our career position, making it impossible to see the real problems or lessons we need to learn. In this episode, I share a vital mental exercise to help you disconnect your identity from your job title and begin diagnosing your career challenges honestly.

Understand why protecting your ego is one of the most dangerous ways to control your career, leading you to discount valid reasons for stagnation or failure by focusing only on external factors.
Discover the fundamental shift needed: disconnecting your self-worth from your career aspirations. Your position is merely a fact and has little bearing on your innate value or capacity to succeed more generally.
Learn how to use a distancing thought experiment—viewing your situation as if it were an acquaintance’s story—to remove your ego from the diagnostic process and gain necessary clarity and perspective.
Explore why effective growth advice, whether for promotion or post-mortem analysis, requires focusing almost exclusively on the diagnostic aspect ("What happened and why?") rather than building justifications based on your worthiness or past performance.

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