Moonshot Mentor with Laverne McKinnon

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.comMost of us think the problem is energy.If we could just get a little more, we’d update the résumé, write the cover letter, follow up with a former colleague, get the certification.But when you keep making promises you don’t keep, the real cost isn’t momentum. It’s self trust.And once self trust takes a hit, your brain and body get conservative with energy. Not to punish you. To protect you.The problem is, that protection can keep you stuck.Here’s what I mean.If you’ve made a lot of plans and you didn’t follow through on them, your brain starts to treat these plans as make-believe. They aren’t real so you don’t have to pay attention to them. It’s your brain trying to stop you from not feeling bad about breaking a promise to yourself.You may not realize this, but disappointment takes energy. Shame takes energy. That internal argument you have with yourself after you don’t do the thing takes energy.Your system tries a different strategy. It reduces the fuel you need to do the thing you know you need to do. So you literally don’t have the energy to fulfill the promise (or the plan) that you made. The reduction of fuel makes starting feel like mud. It’s a way for your system to say: let’s not risk another broken promise and the shame spiral that follows.So here’s how to get your energy back. Stop trying to force motivation. Start rebuilding self trust.The 80 Percent Promise MethodOnly make a promise to yourself that you’re 80 percent confident you can keep. Not 90 percent. Certainly not 100 percent. 80 percent is the sweet spot because it’s doable. And it creates evidence that you can keep a promise which helps your brain realize those promises are real.Here’s how it works.* Make the promise small enough to finish in under ten minutes.Make it a single step. Not a project. Example: “Find the most recent version of my resume in my files.” Not: “Update my resume.”* Identify what might stop you from keeping the promise. Don’t judge. Just be honest. Maybe it’s technology issues. Maybe your kid gets a cold. Maybe you run out of time. Maybe you hit an emotional wall. The point isn’t to fix your personality. The point is to name the friction that might pop up.* Choose an antidote for that obstacle. If the obstacle is time, the antidote might be reprioritizing with the help of an objective friend. If the obstacle is tech, the antidote might be to know exactly who you can call whether it’s a hired hand or your teenager. If the obstacle is interruptions, the antidote might be setting a ten minute boundary and locking the door to your room.* Take the antidote! Then write a permission slip to readjust because life happens. This matters more than it sounds. You’re not failing. You’re adapting to real time issues. Your permission slip can be one sentence: “If my kid gets the flu, I will reset without shaming myself.”* Hard stop after you deliver on your promise. This is where self trust gets rebuilt. You said one thing. You did one thing. Then you stop. You’re proving reliability, not trying to squeeze out productivity.* Reward yourself. Make it simple and real. Give yourself a sticker. Share the win with someone you love. Take a moment to look in the mirror and say thank you. You’re teaching your brain and body that keeping promises to yourself counts.Over time, this does something sneaky and powerful. You start believing in yourself again. And when you believe in yourself, energy shows up. It’s amazing. Paid Member Live Coaching Reminder 😃🗓️ Thursday, Jan 29 at 11:30am PST here on Substack. Bring questions from the January career grief video lesson and worksheet, or show up with whatever you’re navigating right now. Come get unstuck.A quick case study: Richie and the ten minute promiseWhen I met Richie, he kept telling me the same thing: “I know I need to update my resume. I just can’t seem to get myself to do it.”He wasn’t confused about the steps. He was stuck in the loop.The old approach sounded like this: “Tonight I’m going to update my resume.”And then life would happen. The dishwasher imploded, his kid got detention and needed extra attention, his laptop battery died. When these things happened, the next morning, he didn’t just feel behind. He felt angry with himself. Which made updating his resume feel like more proof that he was “lazy.” So he avoided it. And the self trust took another hit.So we tried something different. Not bigger effort. Smaller promises.Here was Richie’s 80 percent promise: “Tomorrow at 10:00 am, I will find the most recent version of my resume in my files.”That’s it. Not update it. Not rewrite it. Just locate it.Then we did the honesty step. What might stop him?For Richie, it was three things. He’d open his laptop and immediately get hijacked by email. He’d start searching for the file, get irritated that he couldn’t find it, and then bail. Or he’d get interrupted and tell himself he’d come back later.So we chose antidotes that matched the real obstacles.Notifications off for ten minutes. A simple search plan: search his email for “resume,” then check downloads, then search his files. And a quick boundary: a ten minute timer, plus a heads up to the people around him that he was unavailable until it went off.Then the permission slip: “If something derails this, I will reset later today without making it mean something bad about me.”When 10:00 am came, he did the one thing. He searched with clarity on what success meant. If he found the resume within ten minutes, great. Hard stop. Reward.If he didn’t find it within ten minutes, he still got to count the win. Because the promise wasn’t “find the resume.” The promise was “search for ten minutes.”At minute ten, he stopped, took a breath, and faced a hard truth: The resume wasn’t findable. Richie needed to start from scratch.That moment could have turned into shame. Instead, we treated it as clarity and made the next 80 percent promise: “Tomorrow at 10:00 am, I will open a blank document and write my last two job titles.”Not build the whole thing. Not format it. Just lay the first brick.Small? Yes.But that’s the point. Richie wasn’t building a resume in one sitting. He was rebuilding trust.And once he started collecting proof that he could keep promises to himself, his energy shifted. Not because his life got easier overnight. Because he stopped treating his own commitments like optional suggestions.That’s what restores momentum. Energy isn’t just physical. It’s trust in motion.Bottom LineIf you’re waiting for energy to show up before you take action, you may be waiting a while. In career transitions, energy comes second. Self trust comes first.When you make big promises and break them, your brain starts treating your plans like make believe. It’s trying to protect you from the emotional cost of another letdown. The problem is that protection shows up as low energy.So don’t push harder. Become believable to yourself again.Try this once in the next 24 hours: make one 80% promise that takes ten minutes, do it, stop, reward the win. That’s the practice.And if you lead a team, zoom out for a second. The same dynamic shows up at work. When commitments keep getting made and broken, trust erodes. Energy drops. Pressure makes it worse.If you’re a senior leader and this feels familiar, I’d love to hear what you’re seeing. I have a few 1:1 coaching spots open right now, and I also work with leaders and teams who want to rebuild trust and follow through after disruption without turning the workplace into a therapy session. If you want to explore what this could look like in your organization, DM me and we’ll set up a time to talk.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* Is Uncertainty Blocking Your Career Growth?* How To Bounce Back From Blunders* What’s Really Driving You?Perks for Paid MembersMoonshot Mentor is for people and teams moving through professional change that hits harder than expected. Get short monthly video lessons on career grief, plus a simple guide that helps you turn insight into your next right step, live monthly coaching to work through what’s happening in real time, and weekly meditations and journal prompts to steady yourself and move forward with clarity.Journal PromptsHere are 3 journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor members. You can use these to start to rebuild self trust. Remember, we start with small micro steps.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.comYour career isn’t broken. Your heart is.And if you’ve been feeling this heartbreak for a while, you may also be feeling stuck and not sure what to do to get your mojo back. I’ve been there. And I want to talk about the kind of stuckness that doesn’t respond to a new resume, a new routine, or a new burst of motivation.It’s the kind of stuckness where you’re doing your best, but something in you feels like the weight of the world is burrowed in the pit of your stomach. Here’s what it might look like:* You can get things done, but you cannot get traction.* You keep circling the same decision.* You second guess yourself more than you used to.* The idea of making a move feels exhausting, even when it is a good move.* You are functioning, but something feels flat.When people describe this, they usually assume it means one of two things. They’re a failure. Or they’re lazy.I don’t think either of those is the most useful explanation. And honestly, it’s often not accurate. I think a lot of ongoing career stuckness is unresolved career grief.How do I know this? Because I know career grief personally. Like the time I was fired from a company I worked at for ten years. Or the conscious uncoupling of my company a few years ago. Or the movie I was producing that lost its financing after the actor and writer strikes of 2023.Career grief is what shows up when something you were attached to in your work life ends, changes, or never becomes what you hoped it would be. A role. A team. A leader. A project. A promotion. A future you were counting on.Career grief is real, and it can break your heart. In the way that makes you more cautious than you want to be. In the way that makes you feel guarded in rooms where you used to feel confident. In the way that makes you wonder if you even have it in you anymore.Hard truth about the entertainment industry:Talent is not the bottleneck. Access is. If you want the strategy and best practices to get your movie across the finish line, join the Moonshot Lab. Learn more here. Here’s the part most of us miss. Naming the heartbreak helps, but naming it is not the actual work of getting back your mojo.Because when grief doesn’t get space, it hardens into self protection. It shows up as cynicism, silence, risk aversion, burnout, disengagement. It shows up as stuck.This is why I keep returning to one idea.If your career broke your heart, you do not just need a strategy.You need a way to mourn what happened, so you can move again.That’s what I’m building inside Moonshot Mentor for paid subscribers.Solid Ground: An ongoing community for navigating career grief with clarity and courage.It’s a monthly practice for people who are tired of white knuckling their way through change and ready to make space for what was lost, without getting swallowed by it.RISE is the structure I use to help you name what was lost, make sense of what happened, create compassionate closure, and take a real next step.Here’s what happens each month.* First, you get a short video from me, under five minutes, with one insight from the RISE framework.* Next, you get a worksheet that helps you reflect and take one practical step forward.* Then, on the fourth Thursday of every month at 12 pm PST, we meet live for coaching. Bring your questions. Bring the situation you cannot stop replaying. Bring the decision you keep postponing. I will coach you in real time.The coaching sessions will be recorded and available on replay for paid members only. Throughout the year, I’ll also bring in guest speakers to help us go deeper on grief, change, identity, and rebuilding after a setback.A few brass tacks, because I believe in transparency.* Paid membership is $5 per month or $50 for the year.* Paid members also receive weekly Moonshot Meditation drops on Sunday mornings, plus exclusive journal prompts that accompany my weekly career strategy blogs.If you’re not a paid member yet, you still get the weekly blogs and a monthly live Ask Me Anything. This month’s AMA theme is Re Entry.If you’ve been feeling stuck, I want to leave you with this. Stuckness is not a character flaw. It’s information. And it may be telling you that you have unresolved grief from a professional setback or loss.If your career broke your heart, and you’re ready for a monthly structure to mourn and move forward, I would love to have you as a paid member.Come join us in Solid Ground: An ongoing community for navigating career grief with clarity and courage.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* A Touch Of Grief With Your Moonshot* Is Grief Holding Me Back?* Got The Rug Pulled Out From Underneath You?Perks for Paid MembersMoonshot Mentor is for people and teams moving through professional change that hits harder than expected. Get short monthly video lessons on career grief, plus a simple guide that helps you turn insight into your next right step, live monthly coaching to work through what’s happening in real time, and weekly meditations and journal prompts to steady yourself and move forward with clarity.Journal PromptsHere are 3 journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor members. Use these to name what’s been sitting heavy, make sense of what it’s been costing you, and take one small step toward movement again.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.comBefore you decide what to do next in your career, it helps to understand why you’re doing it at all.Career strategy gets a lot of attention. Especially from me. I love vision boards. Five year plans. Action steps. And all of that has its place. But strategy on its own is not going to hold up for the long run. When things get hard, fuzzy, or take longer than you expected, your strategic plan is not going to hold you up unless you have clarity on the meaning underneath it.The way I think about career momentum is pretty simple. There are three layers that need to work together: a spiritual foundation, a strategic plan, and clear tactics. When the foundation is missing, even the most thorough approach can start to crumble.It reminds me of the time I said yes to going to Disneyland. I’d never been. I was mildly curious, but I hadn’t really thought about what I wanted from the experience. Once we got there, the parking was wildly expensive, the lines were endless, and none of the food appealed to me. I wanted to bolt. Not because Disneyland was bad, but because I hadn’t chosen it for myself. I’d said yes out of people pleasing, not purpose.Careers work the same way.In your career, the foundation comes first. That’s where your values and purpose live. Strategy comes next. It’s the roadmap. And tactics come last. The small, concrete steps that move you forward once the direction is clear.Let’s break it down.Your Spiritual FoundationYou can have a clear vision for your career and still feel wobbly if that vision isn’t rooted in your own values and purpose. When the foundation is borrowed or assumed rather than examined, it’s hard to stay committed once the path gets complicated. Which it always does.That’s what happened with Molly.Molly grew up in a family of journalists. Her parents and grandparents worked in newsrooms, and family dinners often revolved around media, politics, and what was happening in the world. Continuing the legacy felt natural … and expected.So she built a strategic plan: earn a journalism degree from a prestigious university. Land a regional reporting job with the intention of working her way up. Take the best promotion regardless of where it was geographically. On paper, everything made sense.But after graduation, she struggled to find her footing. Not because she wasn’t talented, but because her career direction was built on parents’ values, not her own. She had never really paused to ask what mattered to her or what kind of work gave her energy. When she hit the inevitable bumps along the way, she had nothing to anchor her.Without a spiritual foundation, there was no reason to push through discomfort. No internal compass. Just the pressure to meet family expectations.This is why the spiritual foundation matters. It gives you a why that belongs to you. Not one you inherited.When you understand your values and purpose, you’re better equipped to weather uncertainty, make cleaner decisions, and course correct without spiraling. Your spiritual foundation won’t prevent setbacks, but it will help you stay rooted in what’s most important to you when they show up.Once Molly slowed down enough to look honestly at her values, something became clear. She didn’t dislike writing. She disliked the version of writing she had inherited. What actually lit her up was storytelling. Imagination. Building worlds. Working independently and on her own terms.Her purpose wasn’t about preserving a family legacy. It was about creating a body of work that created a community of like minded people who loved fantasy storytelling.That clarity changed everything. Not overnight, but pretty quickly. Instead of forcing herself to fit into a career that looked good on paper, she began shaping one that aligned with how she wanted to live and work.That’s when it became time to re-conceive her strategy plan.Your Strategic PlanStrategy is what you build once your foundation is clear. It’s the bridge between what matters to you and how you move forward in the real world. Without the foundation, strategy feels rigid or depleting. With it, strategy becomes supportive and energizing.For Molly, that meant designing a plan around writing fiction. Not someday. Now. So her strategy focused on finding steady work that paid the bills without draining her creative energy. She didn’t need her day job to be the dream. She needed it to support the dream.But the plan didn’t stop there.Strategically, Molly decided that her primary job outside of paid work was to write. Consistently. She set out to finish a full draft and once she had something complete, she would share it with a small, trusted group of readers and revise based on their feedback.From there, the strategy expanded. If the manuscript felt strong, she would begin researching publishing agents. If that route didn’t open up, she would explore self publishing as a viable next step. The point wasn’t to force one outcome. It was to keep moving forward in a way that aligned with her values and long term vision.This is what strategy does at its best. It helps you use your resources wisely. Your time. Your energy. Your money. Your relationships. It clarifies what deserves your focus and what doesn’t. It also gives you permission to make choices that might not impress anyone else, but make sense for you.Once Molly had that roadmap, the next step was obvious.Tactics.Tactical StepsTactics are where things get concrete. This is where you break the bigger plan into small, manageable actions.One of the most common mistakes I see is people jumping straight into tactics without understanding the bigger picture. When there’s no foundation, tactics turn into busywork. You move, but you don’t feel grounded. It’s why so many people bounce from role to role without ever feeling settled. There’s no anchor.Once Molly course corrected, she could finally get specific. She knew her best writing time was in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. So she looked for jobs close to home to avoid long commutes. She wanted work that started in the early to mid afternoon and wrapped by early evening so she could protect her creative time.She also got clear on the numbers. She figured out what she needed to earn each month and set a minimum hourly rate for a manageable work week. That clarity shaped every decision she made.Her next steps were simple and focused. She reached out to people she knew. She set up alerts on job boards. She asked around locally. Within a few weeks, she found a job that met her criteria.Not because she hustled harder, but because her choices were aligned.Bottom LineThe question isn’t what your next move should be. It’s why that move matters to you. When you start there, strategy stops feeling like pressure and tactics stop feeling like busywork. You’re no longer saying yes out of habit or people pleasing. You’re choosing a direction you can actually stay with, even when the path gets hard or unclear.That’s what gives a career plan staying power.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* Is It Time For A New Career?* How To Move Ahead In Your Career* Got Career Progress?Perks for Paid MembersMoonshot Mentor is for people and teams moving through professional change that hits harder than expected. Get short monthly video lessons on career grief, plus a simple guide that helps you turn insight into your next right step, live monthly coaching to work through what’s happening in real time, and weekly meditations and journal prompts to steady yourself and move forward with clarity.Journal PromptsHere are 5 journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor members to help you reflect on how meaning, strategy, and action are showing up in your own career right now.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.comIf you’re anything like me, downtime doesn’t come naturally. I get the value of stepping away from work and yet I still find myself filling open space with something productive. Over the weekend I found myself filling downtime with re-organizing the pantry. And when I say downtime, I mean the kind of pause that has nothing to do with goals, perfectionism or making things better.Years ago, after I’d started a new gig, I headed into winter break with a plan to “catch up.” My big idea was to read and evaluate more than twenty books to decide whether any might make good film or television projects. That meant more than a book a day. I convinced myself it was reasonable. Predictably, it wasn’t. I didn’t hit the goal, and the pressure I put on myself wiped out any chance at rest. I came back to work depleted and annoyed with myself for what I called “wasted time.”Over the past few years, I’ve been experimenting with real breaks. A winter break. A summer break. A solid two to four weeks of nothing to do with work. Some days I get bored. Some days I get ideas I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t slowed down. It’s truly a practice, not something I’ve mastered. In fact I would say I’m a lowly apprentice.The reminder to keep practicing landed again recently. Our youngest daughter was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition, and my husband and I met with her care team. Two things came up that stopped me in my tracks.One: stress and anxiety make her symptoms worse. There’s nothing surprising about that on the surface, but the next part mattered. To release the stress and anxiety, she needs fun. She needs play. It works better than pain meds for her.And two: my stress and anxiety affect her too. That one hit harder. I’ve always known kids absorb what’s in the air, but hearing it framed as part of her treatment plan made me rethink how I’m living. If rest and play help her body stay steadier and reduce the pain, then rest and play can’t be optional for me either.So here’s where I am as we close out the year. I’m stepping into my winter break and will be back January 12. There won’t be a post on January 5, and that’s intentional. I’m giving myself room to breathe, to reset, and to model the things I want for my daughter and for myself.If this topic speaks to you and you’d like to sit with it a bit more, I’m sharing a great article from @Alli Kushner about Why Doing Nothing Is A Hidden Driver of Career Growth. It’s a smart, thoughtful look at how stepping back can move your work forward in ways constant effort never does.So here’s to closing out the year with a little less hustle and a little more breathing room. I’m calling it progress if I don’t re-organize another drawer or closet … until January 12.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* Rest Is Not A To-Do Item* Why Is Rest An Ethical Responsibility?* Are You A Workaholic?Perks for Paid SubscribersMoonshot Mentor paid subscribers get weekly journal prompts to spark personal and professional growth, guided meditations to help them center, reflect, and reset, plus exclusive career development and career grief workshops that build clarity, resilience, and momentum.Journal PromptsHere are three journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor subscribers. These questions invite you to look at your relationship with rest, play, and the pressure to stay productive, especially as the year winds down.

Explore the thrilling journey of pursuing bold moonshots! Discover how ambition exposes the gap between who we are and who we aspire to be. Learn the importance of grounding your pursuits in values and purpose. Get inspired by actionable steps, from reflecting on what breaks your heart to choosing tiny first actions. Understand the inevitability of setbacks and the need for a support system. Ultimately, embrace the transformative power of moonshots as invitations to grow and align with your true self.

Procrastination isn’t just about being lazy; it often signals deeper feelings that need attention. Many avoid tasks to escape shame or fear linked to them. Ambiguous goals can stall progress, so breaking tasks into smaller steps is advised. Perfectionism can paralyze action, while cognitive overload shrinks our capacity to tackle even simple tasks. Misaligned priorities can also trigger delay, alongside fear of change. Ultimately, understanding the reasons behind procrastination can lead to easier action and progress.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.comLet’s be honest—most of us don’t plan our careers. We react to opportunities, chase what looks good on paper, and hope it all somehow adds up.But if you want to stop winging it and start steering it, you need a strategic career plan—think of it as your personal GPS—connecting where you are today to where you want to go, so every step actually moves you closer to your goals.Take my client Jerry. He wanted a seat in the C-suite and his mentor told him an MBA was key. So, Jerry applied to several Ivy League programs—his heart set on Stanford. When he got the rejection email (ouch), his mentor called in a favor to get feedback. Turns out, Jerry’s résumé lacked a “big win.” He needed something to help him stand out from the crowd.So, they got to work. Over the next year, Jerry led a project that showed real leadership and delivered major results. He reapplied—and this time, he got in.That’s the power of a strategic plan. It keeps you focused on the long game, helps you adapt when things go sideways, and reminds you that progress isn’t about overnight wins. It’s about intentional, sustained effort that pays off over time.So stick with me — we’re going to unpack what made Jerry’s plan work—and how you can use the same approach to shape your next chapter. I’ll walk you through what to include, what to avoid, and how to shift from letting your career happen to actually running the show.Key Elements of a Career Strategic PlanThere are four key elements to building a strategic career plan:* Clarify Your Vision and Purpose: What does success actually look like for you? Think of vision as your destination and purpose as the engine that drives you there. Are you motivated by creativity, leadership, or making an impact? Getting clear on this gives your decisions direction and keeps your goals aligned with your values.* Create Goals and Objectives: Big dreams need small, specific steps. Goals are the big-picture outcomes (like “Become a VP within five years”), while objectives are the measurable action steps that get you get there (“Lead three cross-departmental projects in the next 18 months”). Think of goals as the headline, and objectives as the fine print that makes it real.* Conduct a SWOT Analysis: Before you map any move, know your landscape. What are your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT). This snapshot gives you the lay of the land – where you shine, where you can grow, and what’s happening around you that might help or hinder your progress. This step grounds your plan in reality.* Identify Milestones and Metrics Milestones mark your key moments like completing a certification, landing a leadership role, publishing an article. Metrics measure your impact like boosting team performance by 20% or expanding your network by 50 new contacts. Tracking both keeps you honest, motivated and clear on your wins.What’s important to remember is that a strategic plan isn’t chiseled in stone. It’s meant to evolve as you do. New data, experiences, and insights will keep shaping it—and that’s a good thing. I like to revisit these headline elements at least once a year to see what needs a tweak or a course correction.Case Study: Jerry’s Strategic Plan in ActionLet’s revisit Jerry—the C-suite hopeful we met earlier. When we last left him, he’d just turned a Stanford rejection into a powerful lesson about clarity and perseverance. Now let’s look at how he built his strategic career plan step by step, using the same four elements we just covered.Jerry wasn’t chasing a title for ego’s sake. He wanted to lead in FinTech because he cared deeply about access. His moonshot was to make wealth-building tools available to everyday people—even those who could only invest fifty dollars at a time. That was his vision and purpose: to use leadership as a way to open financial doors that had long been closed.To move that vision into motion, he needed clear goals and objectives. The first was straightforward—earn an MBA from a top-tier program. But the how mattered just as much as the what. With his mentor, Jerry broke the big goal into smaller, actionable steps: identify a visible project that could showcase leadership, deliver measurable results, and strengthen his MBA application.Next came his SWOT analysis. Jerry’s strengths included sharp analytical thinking and the ability to navigate complex systems. His weaknesses? He hadn’t yet proven his leadership impact on a major stage. Opportunities included his mentor’s network and a company ready for fresh ideas. The threats were real too—fierce competition for top MBA programs and limited recognition at work. Seeing it all laid out helped him target where to take bold, meaningful action.Jerry launched a cross-departmental initiative to improve client onboarding—a persistent problem in his organization. It wasn’t easy. He had to rally skeptical teammates, make tough calls, and stay centered when the project hit turbulence. But he tracked milestones and metrics religiously: monthly progress reviews, measurable efficiency gains, and client retention rates. By year’s end, his team improved onboarding efficiency by 30% and cut costs across departments.When Jerry reapplied to Stanford, he had a story worth telling—one that blended purpose, proof, and progress. His essays weren’t about ambition; they reflected alignment. He didn’t just get in. He stepped into his next chapter with a renewed sense of confidence and a clear direction for the impact he wanted to make.Jerry’s plan wasn’t perfect—it evolved as he did. But that’s the beauty of having a strategy rooted in purpose. It gives you something solid to lean on when things change, and a clear way to measure progress when doubt creeps in. His story is proof that when you approach your career with curiosity and intention, even a setback can become a step forward.Bottom LineA strategic career plan isn’t about predicting every turn—it’s about creating a framework that keeps you aligned with your purpose while staying open to change. When you take time to clarify what matters most, set meaningful goals, and check in with yourself regularly, you stop drifting and start leading. Progress may not always be linear, but with intention behind it, it’s always forward.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* What’s a Moonshot and How Do I Find One?* How to Move Ahead in Your Career* What are the Seven Big Mistakes of Goal Setting?Perks for Paid SubscribersMoonshot Mentor paid subscribers get weekly journal prompts to spark personal and professional growth, guided meditations to help them center, reflect, and reset, plus exclusive career development and career grief workshops that build clarity, resilience, and momentum.Journal PromptsHere are 4 journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor subscribers. These questions will help you clarify your career vision, strengthen your strategy, and stay connected to what truly matters as you move forward.

Today is a departure from the usual career strategy talk, but still applicable to anyone who’s going after a moonshot and is in need of inspiration. I’m joining a community experiment launched by producer Ted Hope to bring together NonDē filmmakers on Substack. You’ve heard of independent filmmaking? This is non-dependent filmmaking and honestly I find that inspiring in itself – to boldly state we are no longer depending on the systems that have kept people on the outside, repressed, and denied.The idea behind the experiment is simple: each day, a member of the non-de filmmaking community or an ally or advocate shares the works, artists, or moments that are currently inspiring them. I’ve loved reading the previous posts and many of them have inspired me to action - cuz that’s what inspiration is: getting out of our spiraling monkey minds and going after our moonshots.Before I share my three inspirations as part of part of the #FilmStack Inspiration Challenge, a quick acknowledgement because these kinds of experiments don’t happen without a lot of volunteer work behind the scenes.Huge thanks to Donny Broussard, Film Le Fou, and Avi Setton for keeping the chain alive and beautifully eclectic.INSPIRATION #1: Anyone Who Spits in the Face of UncertaintyThere’s a particular kind of biting on tin-foil vibe in filmmaking — that grit and stoicism to make something with no promise it’ll ever see the light of day. You don’t know if your film will get financed, find an audience, or even make it out of post. And yet, you keep going. That’s what I love most: the folks who have the audacity to create with no guarantees.My friend and client, Utttera Singh, embodies this better than anyone I know. Her feature debut Pinch premiered in narrative competition at Tribeca this year — a dark comedy about sexual assault, shot and set in India, in Hindi with English subtitles. That alone would make most filmmakers flinch. But Utts leaned straight into it. She nails the very tricky tone with ease and full command. Please see this movie when it comes out.But you don’t have to only work in film to know that feeling. Anyone who’s ever started something from scratch — a business, a book, a new chapter — has faced that same blank space. Where courage gets tested and creativity is born. So yeah, I’m inspired to leap into the unknown by anyone who spits in the face of uncertainty.INSPIRATION #2: The Mensches Who Share the Damn PlaybookNow, we all know the hard truth that talent, grit, and stoicism alone don’t get a film made. You also need a few good humans who share their playbook instead of guarding it.Ted Hope is one of those people. I’m not saying that to blow smoke up his ass — I’m saying it because he said yes to a cold email from someone he didn’t know: me. (If you don’t know Ted, he’s a prolific film producer, former head of Amazon movies, and has produced Academy award winning and nominated films like Manchester by the Sea. In other words, he’s fancy pants.)I’d reached out to see if he’d speak to a group of filmmakers and producers I lead through The Moonshot Collective. He didn’t ask who was attending, what their credits were, or if there was a check attached (there wasn’t — though I made a donation to a charity in his name). He just showed up. Told stories. Made us laugh. Ignited new ideas.In The Moonshot Collective we’ve had a lot of folks willing to share their playbook which honestly restores my faith in humanity. Everyone from studio folx like Charlotte Koh / Lionsgate, Sarah Shepard / Disney, Elizabeth Grave / Sony and legends like attorney Peter Dekom. Their generosity to the Moonshot Collective is powerful role modeling: access isn’t something you guard, it’s something you extend.One quick piece of advice to anyone whether you’re in the film industry or not, always always always ask. People do say “yes.”So yeah, I’m inspired by the best practices, knowledge and experience these mensches are openly and generously sharing.INSPIRATION #3: Hugging the BearThis is me as a baby producer. Our lead actor decided to play basketball during lunch and came back completely unfazed that his sweaty, beet-red face would put us behind schedule.I was livid and wanted everyone to be as mad at the actor as I was. My mentor took one look at me and said, “What’s done is done. You can’t go back. How do you want to solve it?” It was a bitter pill to swallow because I really wanted to let everyone know that the actor was wrong and I was “right”, but I had to make peace with the chaos and keep us moving forward.Over time, I actually learned to love the hard truths and I’ve even adopted a phrase for it: hugging the bear. It’s the act of wrapping your arms around what scares the hell out of you so it stops running the show. The bear might be a blown deadline, a deal falling apart, a hard conversation, or the reality that the plan’s gone off the rails. Hugging the bear means you stop pretending you’re in control and start adapting in real time.Every industry has its own version of the bear. The boss who changes direction midstream. The client who ghosts. The project that’s tanking despite your best effort. We all meet that moment when the story we wanted to tell collides with the one we’re actually living.Hugging the bear inspires me to seek out the truth. And when I know the truth, I can get super creative in solving any problems that the truth reveals .Bottom LineInspiration is a way to refill your resiliency and will-power cup. Inspiration gives you a fresh perspective. Inspiration can be anything that moves you. My wish for you is that you continue to find inspiration in your work, in your life. And please share it - let us know what’s inspiring you in the comments. It could make a real difference to someone who’s feeling stuck.P.S. For bonus inspiration, be sure to check out FilmStack Daily Digest. If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* Are You Missing The Magic In Your Career?Perks for Paid SubscribersMoonshot Mentor paid subscribers get weekly journal prompts to spark personal and professional growth, guided meditations to help them center, reflect, and reset, plus exclusive career development and career grief workshops that build clarity, resilience, and momentum.Journal PromptsHere are three prompts to help you uncover what’s inspiring you right now and where courage might be calling you next.* When was the last time you spit in the face of uncertainty? Think about a moment when you acted before you had all the answers. What made you move anyway, and what did that risk reveal about your courage?* Who’s shared their playbook with you—and who might need a peek at yours? Reflect on the people who’ve offered you wisdom, mentorship, or access. How did their generosity change things for you, and how can you pass it on?* What’s your version of the bear right now? Name one hard truth you’ve been avoiding. What might open up if, instead of resisting it, you decided to face it and get creative about what comes next? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit moonshotmentor.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.com“I can’t find a job.”If that’s what you’ve been saying to yourself, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common things I hear from people in transition. What’s really underneath is that mix of dread and “oh no, what if I’ve peaked?”Here’s the truth: often, the problem is that we’re looking for opportunities too narrowly — using what’s called foveal vision.What Foveal Vision Gets WrongFoveal vision is the kind of eyesight you’re using right now to read these words. It’s sharp, detailed, and essential when you need precision. But it’s also extremely limited. The fovea covers just a tiny fraction of your visual field.That’s exactly how many people approach a job search. They lock onto one title, one industry, one single path they believe is the “right” use of their skills. When that role isn’t available, their vision narrows even more. The harder they strain, the less they see.The Wider Lens of Peripheral VisionPeripheral vision is everything that sits just outside the little bullseye your eyes usually lock onto. It’s what lets you sense someone walk into the room without turning your head. It’s softer, more spacious, and it connects you to a bigger kind of awareness.In your career, peripheral vision is what helps you soften your gaze and notice possibilities in the margins. It’s how you see your skills in new contexts. Think of it like flour. If you believe flour is only for bread, you’ll miss that it also makes cakes, sauces, playdough, glue, even shampoo. The same ingredient, countless applications.Try This Quick ExercisePick one object in your space right now — maybe that plant you’re pretty sure is faking being alive.Focus on it. Notice its color, shape, and the way the light hits it.Now, without moving your eyes, soften your gaze. Notice what’s just outside of that object. Expand your awareness. Let yourself sense what’s above, to the side, maybe even slightly behind you.That’s the difference between foveal and peripheral vision. It’s not about losing detail. It’s about widening the field so more possibilities can come into view.How Job Seekers Get StuckMost job seekers default to foveal vision. They build their search around a single job title. They plug that title into LinkedIn or Indeed and hope something perfect appears.If the market for that role is shrinking, panic sets in. They start telling themselves: I’ll never work again. I’m obsolete. But the truth is simpler — they’re staring too hard at the wrong thing.Chris’s StoryTake Chris. He was a creative executive with some impressive wins under his belt. Then he got laid off. For eighteen months, he scoured job boards and reached out to contacts — but only for creative executive roles. The industry was quiet. With each silence or “no,” his confidence took another hit.That’s the trap of foveal vision. Chris was staring so tightly at a single job title that he couldn’t see how versatile his skills really were.Together, we broke his skills down: project management from idea to delivery, sales acumen in pitching properties, creative analysis of what works in a market, talent management and development, deep research abilities, and translating business objectives into creative outcomes.When I asked what energized him most, Chris lit up at the mention of business development. He loved finding new buyers, building relationships, and positioning ideas for success. It wasn’t the “creative executive” title he craved — it was opening doors and making deals.That realization changed everything. Chris shifted from foveal to peripheral vision. Instead of hunting only for creative executive jobs, he started looking at business development roles in other sectors. Once he softened his gaze, opportunities began to appear.The Bottom LineThis is the power of peripheral vision. It doesn’t erase your expertise — it expands how and where it can be used.Your talents are like flour. If you only see one recipe for them, you’ll stay stuck. But if you widen your gaze, you’ll realize you have far more options than you thought.Sometimes your next chapter isn’t sitting in the center of your vision. It’s waiting at the edges — ready to be noticed the moment you soften your focus.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.P.S. As the holidays come speeding toward us, many people are feeling grief sneak in, energy dipping, and nerves starting to fray.Join me Thursday, November 20 at 12:30 PM PST live on Substack for an “Ask Me Anything” on career grief and the holidays.You can submit your questions ahead of time or come live and bring what’s on your mind. I’m here for you.Related Content* Is It Time For A New Career?* Why Does My Resume Get Ignored?* What Really Happens After You Apply?Perks for Paid SubscribersMoonshot Mentor paid subscribers get weekly journal prompts to spark personal and professional growth, guided meditations to help them center, reflect, and reset, plus exclusive career development and career grief workshops that build clarity, resilience, and momentum.Journal PromptsHere are three prompts for Moonshot Mentor paid subscribers to help you practice widening your own career lens. Think of them as a way to stop focusing on “one right answer” and start noticing what’s sitting at the edges of your vision.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit moonshotmentor.substack.comHave you ever hit a big milestone—one you thought would feel amazing—and instead, you’re like, “Wait, that’s it?”You got the job. You crossed the finish line. You checked the box. And five minutes later, you’re already on to the next thing. Or worse—you feel a little empty, maybe even disappointed.I don’t think that’s because you’re ungrateful. I think it’s because you’ve been living by someone else’s definition of success. And if you’re wondering where those definitions come from, look no further than the culture we’re raised in. It feeds us a script about what “making it” should look like.The Success Playbook We Rarely QuestionIn the U.S., we live in a capitalist-first culture. And whether we realize it or not, we’re spoon-fed a script about what “success” should look like. It usually sounds like this:* Make a lot of money.* Get the big job title.* Work long hours—because hustle equals ambition.* Collect degrees and credentials.* Show it all off with travel, brands, and lifestyle.Now, none of this is bad. Honestly, some of it can be great. But here’s the catch: if you’re chasing these things because you think you should—or because that’s what everyone around you is doing—you’re going to feel sorta hollow and empty when you get there.The Comparison GameAnd then there’s comparison. We look around and think, “Well, they did it, so maybe I should too.”That’s exactly what happened when I went for my MBA. Most of the business leaders I admired had one. So I thought, okay, I need that too. And while that degree never once got me hired, I’ll admit it gave me confidence in a boardroom.But let’s be real—that’s not the degree speaking. That’s me outsourcing my self-worth to a piece of paper. What I really wanted was authority and belonging.That’s what comparison does: it makes you believe if you just had the thing—the degree, the Fendi handbag, the fancy beach or ski vacation—you’d finally feel successful. Spoiler: you will, but only if that’s how you define success.Redefining SuccessHere’s the shift: success isn’t a moving target. It’s a way of life. And the only way to feel it—really feel it—is to define it for yourself.Here’s a little exercise I use with my clients (and myself):* Write down your definition of success. Don’t overthink it—just get it on paper.* Ask yourself: Why is this my definition? Write down the answer.* Ask again: Why is that the answer?* And one more time: Why is this the answer?Each “why” pulls you deeper—past surface-level goals into the values and purpose underneath.Let me show you how this played out for me.Back in 2017, here was my definition of success:* Land a fabulous, high-profile job.* Finish a vomit draft of my book by the end of the year.* Lose 10 pounds.Here’s what happened when I put that list through the “why” filter:High-profile job* Why? Because I wanted to feel important and respected.* Why? Because I thought if people admired me, I’d finally feel secure.* Why? Because underneath all the ambition was a fear that without status, I wasn’t enough.Finish a book draft* Why? Because I wanted to be able to say I was an author.* Why? Because I thought having “author” next to my MBA would make me more legitimate.* Why? Because I believed credibility came from labels, not from having something meaningful to say.Lose 10 pounds* Why? Because I wanted to look like I belonged in Los Angeles.* Why? Because the beauty standards here are unforgiving.* Why? Because I thought if I fit the mold, I’d be more lovable.Unpacking each of these so called definitions of success showed me that none of them connected to my actual values. They were all seeking external validation - and they were goals, not ways of being. No wonder I felt an odd sense of emptiness and like “what, that’s it?”Here’s how I define success today: Listen with curiosity, courage, and compassion while creating content and experiences that help people love, learn, and laugh.See the difference? Instead of goals shaped by comparison and culture, this definition is rooted in what matters to me. It’s not something I can check off a list. It’s something I can live into every single day.The Bottom LineCulture and comparison will always offer you a version of success. But if you don’t stop and ask whether it’s really yours, you’re going to keep hitting milestones that don’t mean anything to you.So grab a pen. Write your definition. Ask why, and then ask why again. And don’t stop until you land on something that feels like you or gives you clarity on what needs to be course corrected. Because success isn’t out there waiting for you at the next finish line. It’s in how you’re living your life today.If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.Related Content* Why Can’t I Stick With It? 🔄* Is Uncertainty Blocking Your Career Growth?* Unlocking Your Life PurposePerks for Paid SubscribersMoonshot Mentor paid subscribers get weekly journal prompts to spark personal and professional growth, guided meditations to help them center, reflect, and reset, plus exclusive career development and career grief workshops that build clarity, resilience, and momentum.Career Strategy with Laverne McKinnon is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Journal PromptsHere are 4 journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor subscribers. These will help you dig deeper into your own definition of success and notice where culture and comparison may have shaped it.