Adventures in Career Change: Part IX – Burning My Ships

“Change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Roy T. Bennett

According to ancient legend, after landing his fleet off the coast of Mexico, Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez ordered his army of 600 men to burn the ships that had just carried them across the Atlantic Ocean. His decision sent a powerful message: retreat was not an option, and their only choice was to complete their mission or die trying. They were either terrified or inspired, perhaps both. None of them had set foot in the new world, and what lay before them was a vast unknown land rich with unfamiliar hazards and uncharted obstacles, not the least of which was the entire Aztec Empire. His was what we now call a “ballsy move.”

It may be more apocryphal than true, but the spirit of the story is a good analogy for where I now find myself in the career change saga that started in 2013. I was then suffering from acute burnout following the spring tax season. Tax accounting had not provided the worthwhile career I had envisioned. Putting numbers in boxes was not fulfilling me, and organizational politics had drained what little joy I did have in my job.

I decided I was over the hamster wheel we call corporate America and that I would pursue my lifelong passion for writing. Writing is a notoriously poorly paid career, and my wife and I at the time could not afford for me to be without a regular paycheck. Yet the stress of accounting was silently killing me (accounting can be a lethal career, quite literally, with intense stress leading to higher rates of heart attacks and other fatal conditions), so I needed some kind of change that could still pay some bills. I tried marketing at a construction company for a few years, and when that job’s inflexibility was too difficult to balance with my family responsibilities, I landed a part time job at a small accounting firm that offered the flexibility I needed as a parent. My plan was to work there for only three years, but Liza was laid off from her job about nine months after I was hired. Around the same time, I was given what turned out to be a life-changing opportunity to transition into the role of the firm’s head of operations.

This new role turned out to be a natural fit for my skill set, and I assumed a full time schedule several years later. It gave Liza time to reestablish herself in a new job and provided us with the chance to stabilize our finances. Personally, it gave me the professional opportunity to pursue a passion in leadership and management that I had underexplored since my first career managing Walgreens stores. In 2024, as part of a work project I became acquainted with an organizational psychologist, which I found to be the career trajectory I had been searching for all these years. I began my PhD in organizational psychology and transitioned back to part time in early 2025.

Which brings us to now: the final installment in my Adventures in Career Change blog series. Around the time I started my PhD program, the firm’s CEO, my boss Rick Whipple, told me he was moving forward with an offer from an outside group to buy the firm. I spent the next several months focused on the due diligence process and struggling with the pit in my stomach. The firm I loved and to which I gave a decade of my life was undoubtedly about to experience significant change. The new owners would have a different style from Rick and their own expectations. I knew I would struggle working for anyone other than Rick—much as I did before I came to the firm. He provided me with an environment remarkably suitable for my personality.

I owe much to Rick, who treated me more like a human being than anyone I have ever worked for. He was the first and only boss I’ve ever had who allowed me to be myself. I felt like he genuinely cared about me as a person, not just as someone who delivered value to his organization. He didn’t treat me like a cog in the wheel, but a vital and trusted partner in his enterprise. Indeed, though I was not an owner in the firm, I often and intentionally acted as if I was. Sometimes that worked out well for me and sometimes not, but I believe it always benefited the firm. Finding employees who so literally embrace the directive to “take ownership” in their jobs is rare. As Henry David Thoreau said, “Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of it.”

Rick gave me the freedom to operate nearly autonomously. I don’t particularly care for being told what to do, and Rick empowered me to make decisions without needing constant and unnecessary approval. I was not constrained by Rick’s viewpoints or opinions, but free to formulate my own and forge the path I thought best, with Rick providing input only when he felt obliged. We didn’t always agree, and there were times I wanted to strangle him—outnumbered I’m sure by the number of times he wanted to strangle me. But working for Rick, I was finally free to embrace who I am instead of feeling compelled to fit in and accommodate.

While some people thrive in traditional corporate structures, my autism diagnosis explained why I was such a bad fit in them. Rick was the only supervisor I ever had who I felt understood me or at least cared enough to try. I will never find another Rick, and so my days as anyone’s employee are over. On July 15^th, 2025, almost to the day the firm changed hands, I officially retired. Liza and I recently donated to the Autism Research Institute in Rick’s honor as thanks for his years of believing in me.

Despite what Rick provided for me, I am admittedly jaded by the business world and the rat race. I never truly escaped the insincerity and the politics of corporate culture—and people who make hasty assumptions without knowing all the facts. Looking back on the entirety of my career, corporate America turned out to be such a disgusting cesspool of self-interest, judgment, and backstabbing that I became disillusioned and cynical. I experienced this environment in practically every job I held, and I experienced it even from people who I considered mentors and friends. Our workplaces can be a heartless, uncaring, inhuman world. If I never hear the phrase “it’s just business” again, it will be too soon. We can and we must do better.

As part of the effort to fix our badly broken workplaces, I have started my own company. Called Paradigm Shift Solutions, it will be my vehicle as an organizational psychologist to help make work more human.

My professional goals are simple. At first, I want to afford a book fund. I buy a lot of books. Later, I want an office space as a quiet place to work away from the chaos that is our house. I don’t want to generate millions of dollars in revenue or have hundreds of employees. That is much too complicated for me. I just want to work by myself and maybe someday have a few employees who I consider like family. Paradigm Shift will offer autism coaching for working adults and autism awareness for companies—things that are obviously now close to my heart. I plan to get certified in the Working Genius workplace personality assessment tool and use it to help companies build effective teams and thriving cultures. I will also offer management and leadership training for individuals and companies—what I will call “Version 2.0,” borrowing the name of Rick’s pioneering leadership program at my old firm that served as inspiration for what I envision. Consulting related to hiring and interviewing will round out my service offerings. I will start here in Colorado with intentions to expand back to Wichita, my hometown, though the virtual nature of work today would make it easy to help small and medium sized businesses across the country. Something additional I am exploring is partnering with colleges to help students transition into the workforce, a developing issue for our young people. Eventually, I may start a YouTube channel and/or a podcast to talk about the growing body of organizational psychology research articles and how to apply them to small businesses.

Most of all, though, my goal is to write. I will focus on writing books, blogs, and articles about organizational psychology and human behavior in the workplace. I believe my time will be most effectively spent developing and sharing ideas in an effort to make work not suck. This is how I will leave the business world a little better than how I found it. I will carve out some time and effort for fiction writing as well.

Every adventure has its end. If there is a destination in career change, I think I have discovered its location on the map. Though I will be working on building Paradigm Shift in the years ahead, the past twelve years of my long adventure out of accounting has come to a close. As much as changing careers can be exciting, it implies you’re not content with where you are—and I never was.

With my ships ablaze behind me, this moment is when one adventure ends so that new ones may begin. I never belonged in the corporate world. I’m just starting on my voyage discovering my neurodivergence, and entrepreneurship is an adventure I’ve been planning for almost my entire life. With my back to the beach and my eyes fixed on the unknown wilderness in front of me, I know on this journey is where I belong.