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WSO Podcast | E51: Lost Student to Director at a Fortune 20. Finding His Niche in Enterprise Architecture

WSO Podcast

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Veteran member @Dedline shares his story from struggling with ADHD during high school, surviving college and finding his niche in healthcare enterprise architecture. How WSO gave him context on the level of competition for job interviews, his dramatic jump in pay at his latest role and some wise advice on career paths and specialization.

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Check out @Dedline's previous Q&A here.

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WSO Podcast (Episode 51) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:05] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into

Different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, veteran member Deadline shares his story from struggling with ADHD during High school, surviving College and finding his niche in health care enterprise Architecture. How WCO gave him context on the level of competition for job interviews. His dramatic jump in pay at his latest role in some wise advice on Career paths and specialization. Enjoy this one! Deadline, thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.

Dedline: [00:00:59] Thanks for having me, Pat, I appreciate you having me on.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:01] Yeah, so a quick summary of your background would be really helpful.

Dedline: [00:01:06] Yeah, so, you know, I can show I take it from the background of just career, should I kind of start off how I can About high school as well all the way from

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:15] The beginning, all the way? Yeah, all the way, all the way back. And then just quick brush strokes is fine. Broad brush strokes?

Dedline: [00:01:20] Sure. Sure. Yeah, I just want to paint the context because I'm not like a lot of the people that you see, you know, at the target schools or, you know, cushy childhood, and cushy background like that. Very much so. I grew up in Belize, Costa Rica and a couple of other places all over, you know, the geopolitical landscape. My father was actually running an internet gambling website when we lived in Costa Rica. It went belly up and we ended up moving back to the states where my parents separated at the time. So it was very much, you know, growing up real Quick how exposed to a lot of different diverse countries and whatnot. So I would not say that I have the traditional upbringing, and when my parents split, Money was always hard.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:03] Growing up, how old were you when they split?

Dedline: [00:02:07] How old are you in GS six or seventh grade, I don't know how old that. Oh, you're pretty young. Yeah, definitely in the formative years. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:14] It's young. Ok, so money was tough. Tell me, were you doing job stuff like that? How did you even get into college?

Dedline: [00:02:22] Yeah. You know, definitely through high school, I was the kind of guy who played a lot of computer games, a lot of Yahoo Sports, not Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Chess, StarCraft Guns, Counter-Strike. I was very much like a computer gamer. And when I ended up going to high school, I knew nobody. And when you go to high school, you don't know anybody in your computer, gamer life's not the best for you. From a social perspective. So let's just say it was trial by fire trying to find friends. When I did, they were quite crazy. Spent a lot of time in high school in in-school suspension and detention because I hung out with, like the hooligan BMX kids, I guess you would say later on, you know, they'd be also the tuner kids once we all got cars and we were 16. But school was an afterthought very much. And, you know, I didn't get good grades because I suffered with from ADHD, all growing up. And it's very hard to get yourself to focus what felt like being trapped in a jail for Eight hours a day. You know where they're teaching to the lowest common denominator with no child left behind? And I just found myself going stir crazy anything to get me out of there because it just wasn't my pace.

You know, you don't really have a choice when you're in public school, otherwise you're a truant if you stop showing up. It's illegal. So I really found, you know, a lot of my self-identity outside. I got a Job growing up at 14 as a dishwasher at the Steakhouse. I worked in. I found a lot of my self-validation, identity and whatnot through that job. I stayed there for three years. I was working basically full time to provide myself with clothes. You know, I bought my own first car. But really, what it did for me was like, you know, I'm worth something. You know, this is something I'm really good at. Let's keep growing of this. You know, this is a big positive for me. And college was pretty much an afterthought despite both of my parents having attended. It was an afterthought. I really thought I was going to go into the Air Force. I took the ASVAB. I did all of that Stuff and kind Of behind my back. My dad actually applied for colleges on my behalf. And I was accepted to my local state school and I'm like, Wow, okay, now I actually do have a, you know, a chance because I graduated high school with a two six barely scraping by. My college essays look like just terrible.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:40] Your dad wrote your college essays. He applied your. Your dad actually applied for you because he was just so worried about you or he tell me about it.

Dedline: [00:04:49] I guess, because I just wasn't really considering it as an option, I hated school so much in high school where it's like, why would I subject myself to another four years of that, right? You know, and then I thought I lacked discipline because I was getting it. I was getting a ton of trouble in high school. And so, you know, how do I instill discipline if I can't do it myself? Oh, military perfect. And then, you know, all my buddies, I live close to a military base. You know, that was the lifestyle. It's right, you know, go in there and do your contract. You get the GI Bill. You know, if you go to school right on it, you don't even cooler. You know, it's very much the military life. And I'm like, you know, this seems easy enough.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:26] So tell me where there are a lot of like were there a lot of drugs and stuff in high school as well? Just like that was the how everyone grow.

Dedline: [00:05:31] I wouldn't say I wasn't a big drug guy. I drank a lot. It was a, you know, whether at my job, a little bit of my job. I mean, it's the service industry. Everybody kind of drink washing dishes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I used to have the bartender come back and slip me a Styrofoam cup full of mouthwash, is what they called it. Yeah, but it was actually rumpled in a little bit of mouth. So take your mouthwash right when you get into work. But yeah, no, it was a great place for a kid to grow up. Yeah, yeah. So like between that and after hours, parties and whatnot, it was a good time. It was a lot like that movie waiting if anybody's seen the movie waiting, but, you know, very much got into college had a tough choice to make. My mom and dad implored me to really consider college, and you know, what really sold me was is, hey, you're not going to be locked up anymore in a chair for eight hours a day, Doing shit you don't want to do. They're like, you can create your own Schedule. It's non-linear. ] It's very modular. Take it when you need it. Get your schedule to work. And I said, you know what? Let's do this. Let's take a chance. Let's give it a go. And then that's when I got into college.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:36] And so tell me about your time there. Were you right away? Did you kind of know what you wanted to do? Tell me about the whole exploration of like different classes and majors and all that stuff.

Dedline: [00:06:46] Right, right. So I've always known that I was going to do some sort of business technology again, all the computer gaming that I did, It led to some interesting Areas of, you know, computer science and very much the technology area. I spent a lot of time on chats and whatnot, and I made money as a kid doing a lot of this stuff where, you know, whether it was farming or moonscape gold or, you know, selling Yahoo Chess Rares, you know, just weird internet goods. So I felt like I was already successful in the business technology area, and I knew that I had to work ethic to pull something off. But I couldn't piece it together just yet. I had an idea that I wanted to do something along the lines of management, information systems or computer science. But when I got into college, apparently you have to know math to do computer Science. I suck at math. So immediately when I flunked out of my college algebra, first class Flunked out just flat out, flunked out. It was intro to calculus. This was not a strong suit for me at all. I'm like, you know what? You know you have. You have a come to Jesus with yourself and realize that you're probably not going to be able to do computer science without a decent math foundation, right? So naturally, you know, kind of swearing off the academic World at the same time. I was I rushed a fraternity because, you know, I was looking for a first of all friend. It's great to be in a fraternity and, you know, a good party school whatnot. Good to be in Greek life, but more so it's, you know, to kind of because I was still in my own town. It was more so to develop that piece of that Polish that what are the upper class middle class kids like? How do they view the world, You know, kind of understanding Of becoming part of, you know, I mean, cheesy and cliché to say, but this brotherhood who could teach me a lot about how the world works and developing that level of polish that you need to be successful after college?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:39] So were these kids like where they were they good actual role models? Do you feel like they were? They had their head on straight and they kind of knew what they wanted to do post-college? Or were they just too busy partying?

Dedline: [00:08:49] Oh, too busy partying, yeah, but it's the way that they live their lives That it just gives you Perspective, you know, when you're from a small town, you know, I'm from a smaller town. Yeah, it gives you perspective As to whoa, like you Guys do this for Christmas or, you know, it shows you there's a whole nother life out There. And I liken it to, you know, at the end of freshman year, I started to kind of stress out about hanging on. I'm not progressing my career quickly enough. You know, you start to see people at your college doing well. And naturally, it was, you know, very familiar to me as I hit the internet And I started looking really hard. You know, Like, Hey, what should I be doing? Stumbled upon? Wall Street Oasis. Way back when it was people like Black Hat, North Sider, Eddie Braverman like these characters. Yeah, they were just Illuminating, you know, like this whole world of not even higher finance. And of course, higher finance, but just white collar professions in general. And, you know, I feel like in our era, you know, it was cool to watch Wall Street Oasis. I mean, not watching the Wolf of Wall Street or all those other finance movies. I always love those. So I kind of got it, although I wasn't Necessarily a finance Person, but that kind of gave me the scope and the insight and the context that there was a whole nother world out there and that while at school, hey, I was partying, Hey, you know, like and I was in my fraternity and whatnot in order to build connections like that. I took a lot of solace in understanding there's a lot more out there, and the rude awakening almost was, you're getting your ass kicked right now. And it was time for me to really buckle down and figure out what I was going to do with my life. After that,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:31] Your ass kick, meaning in terms of classes and stuff, or like just looking at everyone else. You mean just looking at everybody.

Dedline: [00:10:36] You see the target school kids who talk about going summer analysts to summer analysts? Yeah, full time position to private equity.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:44] It's intimidating. It's intimidating. Yeah, it's Intimidating, for sure. I think there's a lot of that. Yeah, so kind of open up that world give you that context of like, OK, well, here's where you could actually Reach to if you Applied yourself, Potentially. So tell me, how did that frame so you still didn't really go into like a pure finance role? Tell me how you kind of approach your junior senior year. Did you end up landing some Internships Given that knowledge that they were important, right?

Dedline: [00:11:12] Yeah, you know, definitely. That's exactly what I did, and at the beginning, I had landed a, you know, a little help desk job at a hospital. And you know, you're reading all these macro reports and how hot, you know, health care is. And I'm thinking, well, you know, this might be a good opportunity to keep branding myself. After that, I landed a health care clearinghouse position, so further branding myself there. And again, these jobs weren't paying pennies, you know, like peanuts. I think I was getting paid ten to twelve dollars an hour to drive 30 minutes in order to get there while going to school and whatnot. But I just Knew, you know, after reading everything on Wall Street Oasis that I have to remain competitive and I knew that, you know, my grades were never going to be fantastic because I'm kind of non-linear guy. I had to beat them out and work experience and very much niche work experience. So I really powered through that my junior and senior year, and I remember I was recruiting for mostly health care I.T. consulting firms. So think like Deloitte, Accenture, some of the Tier two, because I was at a state school tier ones aren't showing up for us.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:13] Yeah, but tell me about that process, like really hard. Tell me what that was like recruiting. I mean,

Dedline: [00:12:17] You just got to be honest with yourself, and I didn't know Anybody. So there's no way I'm making it there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:21] So tell me about that whole. Was it so some of these places were coming on campus? Were you prepping like with your brothers, with, you know, doing like any sort of case prep? Or how were you even getting ready for those interviews, like any sort of Like a lot of fit Type questions like tell me about your weaknesses, did you ever did you do any practice going in or do you just going cold?

Dedline: [00:12:42] Right, right. So I again, I hit up double Wall Street because all my Fraternity brothers they were planning on Somehow, you know, nepotistic commercial real estate, or they knew a guy who worked at Dell. You were, you know what I'm saying?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:55] You had there was money in your frat. Basically, you had kids with their money. Yeah.

Dedline: [00:13:01] Okay. Although I feel like they have the family connections and network to pull that off. I wasn't confident about my ability to do so, and I wanted to win on merit. And so, you know, being able to get to where I was and finally, you know, interview for these, these things, you know, based on the merit based on my resume, based off my work experience, it was very invigorating and I think I took it, took it to my head a little bit. The ego got a hold of me and I remember walking into an Accenture and Deloitte interviews, respectively. I had bought the bookcase method. Or what is it? Case in point, I forget who writes it, but it's A very popular Consulting book, and I thought I was just going to go in there and just shred them, you know, go in there and rip it up. I made the biggest ass of myself in those interviews, and it was just due to a lack of. Ending, not prepping as hard as I should have and really not understanding the professional interview experience, and so I bust it out of those first two.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:56] But that's super common. I can tell you, even at undergrad, I think it's very common for like especially I feel like especially guys like the just over confident like 19, 20 year old going in like, oh, especially if you're comfortable around people and you're a good conversationalist, like you have the energy, right? You have you're comfortable talking, you're like, I'm just going to go in and kill this. And then it gets down to the actual tactical like, OK, I need to set up my case now. And you're like, Oh shit, like, I did this once, or I glanced at the book and then you're in trouble. So tell me about like, how you recovered from that. So you just got blown out those interviews. It was embarrassing. Was it one of those things where you knew right away, like, there's no way I'm getting called back or was it something like, Oh, I thought I did well, were you delusional or did you have some introspection?

Dedline: [00:14:43] Oh, I I knew right away it was the essential one, I started talking about an ex-girlfriend during the interview and then the second one. They give it a breakout. You know the case because I thought I had learned from my attention. One went to the Deloitte one and tried to pull out the case in point that one busted out miraculously because, you know, I drew the little quadrant. I didn't remember what where I just went blank and I'm just like, Wow. Anyway, I found some more technical roles that would play to my Technical skills A little bit better. And they were health care branded.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:16] Why did you think you had technical? Why did you have technical skills? Where did you get that just from like the internet stuff you had done back in the day?

Dedline: [00:15:25] I am a big proponent of you learn about 90 percent of the stuff you do on a job as opposed to reading it is the application Of this type of stuff. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of technical skills like, let's say, Java programming, understanding how to script, you know, just little tiny things I would call them like business process automation type stuff and then just general technical understanding because I worked as a system analyst and help their task helpdesk technician. It really helps to, you know, that was my job. I had to be good at it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:56] So but how did you even know? How did you even know to like, start applying to those types of jobs? Or was that kind of just what was left over?

Dedline: [00:16:04] It's almost like you look at the job field and you go you can kind of classify what's what, what's a progression from where you're at and what fits your persona and what you've been doing and the path of least resistance, truly, you know, because, you know, for these consulting engagements, it required a skill set that I hadn't prepped myself for. I didn't spend enough time with the technical nailing it down. But the jobs that I did get and I'll tell you about the one that I ended up accepting. Yeah, those ones, it was very Much just talking about myself and my experience and where I had been. It felt a whole lot more natural than pretending to be a consultant because I thought I wanted to be a consultant because of Wall Street Oasis. And you know, the rumors circulating?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:45] Well, hopefully you don't hate us for that. And hopefully we didn't put you through trauma, traumatizing interviews for no reason.

Dedline: [00:16:53] At the higher standard, I'm always appreciative.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:55] So, OK, so tell me you get into these other interviews. It's more natural. You're feeling like you're just talking about fit your path. They seem to like you. What type of skillset did you demonstrate or what kind of personality do you feel like you demonstrated that they valued?

Dedline: [00:17:10] Yeah, very much they just like the body of work that I had from the work experience perspective. They love that it was missed out like I stayed in health care the entire time. You can see the linear progression in the jobs that I took year Over year and I could talk about it concisely, conceptually, however you want within an interview because it's what I did, and it was very easy for me to verbalize it as opposed to, you know, let me think of how you want to hear this. It was matter of fact. It was what I did right? And they seem to really like that. And I Remember I Had, you know, It was genuine. I ended up

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:46] It was just genuine. It came across. It was genuine. You came across as it wasn't B.S. it was like, this is really why I did this. I'm interested in this specific niche and I'm not bullshitting. So it comes across that that likeability, that

Being able to have that genuine nature to yourself. I think it's just such a big deal in interviews so underestimated

Dedline: [00:18:07] In terms of totally, totally likeable. Yeah. And I didn't have the GPA in order to pull it off otherwise. So I had to go and work experience. That's who I was. That's how I did it. So the job I remember the job that I ended up accepting. I remember going out and Thinking I was a complete fraud, and I called my mom and my mom was like, you know, listen, you've been doing this for, like almost four Years now. Like, who else has done this at your age, you know, for Years, you have the context go in there and be yourself. You're already in the final round interviews. Just go out there, know what you know, know what you don't know and go out there and dazzling. And at that point, I'd been through enough failures. From an interview perspective, I knew what I wasn't, and I went out there. I execute it and I got the offer. And it was, I remember just crying into my hands and thinking how far I had come at that point. But little did I know that it's a long road. It's not even close to the end.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:00] So, yeah, no, it's interesting that you say no what you don't know. I think that's a very That's, you know, Being humbled a few times in the interview setting kind of in Knowing when to say. I'm not sure or I don't know in an interview instead of trying to be yes, is it big? It's a very important point because any time you try to fake it, People, I mean, these professionals know there, know what you're trying to do. It's just a disaster. It usually is. It ends in disaster. You may you come across as not genuine makes you come across as not Likable or just Worse, like an idiot, because you don't know what you're talking about. So it's almost always better to show. Obviously, you don't want to be going through the whole interview, but like, I don't know. I don't know. I have no clue or anything. But if you can choose a point in the interview where you just flat out say, you know, I actually have no idea, but I can figure that out. I think it actually can work to your advantage. So I completely agree. So continue so you. It's a really emotional moment for you. Your mother sounds like she was super supportive, which is awesome and kind of gave you some great advice.

And you get that. You get that full time offer. Was that kind of in your senior year?

Dedline: [00:20:07] Yeah, that was my senior year, I remember walking out of class, I took the call. I negotiated up my salary a Tiny bit and I had landed my dream job literally the best job I Could have landed out of college. I think I had the best job out of anybody I worked with. And again, I really, really credit Wall Street Oasis for putting me ahead of the ball and trying to understand how hard the competition is out there because you've got to push yourself in order to win these interviews. So that was big for me. And once the rest of the semester basically party, I didn't really care about my GPA anymore. Yeah. You know, at that point, it was very much, you know, just spend the time with your friends because, you know, colleges. It's two different experiences, of course, is the educational, but also the people that you meet there. You know, they're your friends for life. So that was that was important to me, and it was kind of just making sure that my grades stayed in a holding pattern I graduated with, I think, a three.

Yeah, just making sure that my grades stayed in a holding pattern and I'd be all right.

And after that, I shipped out, you know, took the job with the, let's call it, a blue chip technology company. Sure, I came on as an enterprise architect, so think putting products together in order to create solutions for your industry. For me, that was health care and for about three to four years I got now let's call it three years I got right. Happy to tell you more about that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:31] Yeah, tell me hours. Tell me pay anything you can share. Pay range, I assume wasn't. It's not banking pay. Assume it's like, you know, anywhere between 50 and 70 K all in. But tell me, yeah, tell me what it was like kind of the first few years, just not knowing anything and Going from like I got the Job to the reality of actually working

Dedline: [00:21:53] Totally again. You think you have contacts when At least I thought I could draw, you know, A juxtapose. You know what was going on Wall Street Oasis? What I Was experiencing? Yeah, I was able to negotiate my salary up to seventy six k. Oh, that's really good. Like a five K bonus. Wow. So comparable to like a Deloitte BCA or

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:12] That's really impressive. Actually, that's really impressive. Yeah, yeah.

Dedline: [00:22:15] Right out of school. A little chunk of change. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:18] Not bad for twenty-two year old. Definitely.

Dedline: [00:22:20] Yeah, definitely not the ten dollars to twelve dollars I've been grinding on, you know, for four years. So it was nice to have money. Yeah, but what happened when I was in that role is I worked with some very, very intelligent people from we kind of worked on the intersection of research, consulting and sales. So it's very Much making these prototypes and proof of concepts for our blue chip technology company to go out there and kind of light up a room, get people excited about a technology sell or shill the technology as hard as you can and make sure that you're able to create the actual proof of concepts that you're going to go over there and debut. I got trashed on the sales part. I got trashed in the proof of concept part, and from a research perspective, I had to go so much deeper than I already was. Well, tell me,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:12] Two years come

Dedline: [00:23:13] Really buckled down on doing that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:15] So tell me, what do you mean? You got trash like you see it work like long hours.

Dedline: [00:23:20] Now, let's just. You think that like coming out of a fraternity, you know, it was I felt like I had a level of Social polish that Was unrivalled by most people that I'd run into. Yeah. And there is Such a stark difference Between college Socialization and professional etiquette and professional Presentation that It was, you know, it's again, the ego death. You've got to just bury the fact that you came from somewhere you thought you were one thing. Now you've got to go get better and you've got to learn this new skill. So from a sales perspective, I had to build up on that. You know, I came in double major. I really thought I knew my stuff from a health care technology standpoint. I got buried by PhDs and people who patented a lot within the firm who, you know, would come up with these ideas. You know, the project leaders, the leading architects, the distinguished engineers, These people would just shred Me technically and you know, there's a guy who stamps out Posse's in three days. It took me three months, probably, you know, so it was just like, Oh my god, I'm behind.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:22] So P.O.S., being proof of concept proof of concepts or Something, is that what a post

Dedline: [00:24:27] And everything really the sales aspects of the presentation.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:31] It sounds like it's a it's a role that's kind of like a consultant slash blend between marketing and what's in architecture. I guess you're taking the technology and trying to figure out what specific areas that you guys can sell into specific sub industries is. Is that accurate? Yeah. And like how to how to frame the technology.

Dedline: [00:24:51] Definitely. So, for instance, let's take a health care payer. They have a lot of fraud that goes on within the health care payer system that health insurance companies. And so we noodled and we researched we did all the, you know, qualifying of the business plan like, would this make sense? Could this sell? And then if we got enough yeses and enough backing corporately enough corporate sponsors, we wanted to see it happen. They fund it and then we have to build what we've been pitching. And so we go over there and we, you know, I would take like a database function. I was responsible for the database or. But again, this is not software engineering. I would say this is very much like, OK, we have this idea conceptually, and how do we make this work? How do we stitch it together? So a lot more integration as opposed to actually writing software? But it was still very hard

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:39] To tell me about, like, tell me about your first couple of years do it. Yeah. So like your first couple of years out of school, like what's your day? What is your day look like? Like, let's talk. Let's use that example. So some sort of fraud thing so like you're trying to put up some sort of fraud solution together. So what do you you're coming in, let's say you're working on that specific project. What are you doing right, like all day?

Dedline: [00:25:59] Meetings, so I get pulled on to a team and, you know, OK, let's say they debut this, got funded. We have an executive sponsor who wants to fund this because they're going to run that down through their sales channels, incite interest and hopefully generate revenue at the end of the day. Ok. It gets approved. The project lead, the architect in there basically knows what everybody is good at. You know what skills they bring to the table. And for somebody like me, I was very much a zero value add. You know, so they give me like the lowest hanging fruit on the tree. Hey, junior, don't mess this up kind of stuff. Yeah. And after a while, You're kind of tired Of, you know, being an individual. So you really go in there and you buckle down because you want some of the more responsibility, some of the more action. The cooler parts of the technology definitely start at the bottom. And at the beginning of projects, I remember going into work, I get into work at five or six a.m. sometimes, and it would just be Me reading documentation on a technology that I had to stand up. Or, you know, what was I going to, you know, whatever I was assigned. Basically, if I'm doing the deck, if I'm doing the database, if I'm doing the front end and again, they wouldn't give you anything too crazy outside Of your skill set. But I'd say every project I had to self-study for at least two weeks to even understand what I was doing. So I was dead weight for the first two weeks. Then you go in there, you apply it. Some guy who's you know, to a level senior, then you knows way more than you is going to shred your project. Then you go back and you do it again and, you know, rinse, and repeat. It was very much, you know, just a grind technically to understand How to pull these things off. And it took time. It took a lot of time, a lot of pride, a lot of time, a lot of ego.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:39] So were your reviews where your reviews kind of bad the first few years? Or are they getting better each year? How did that progress?

Dedline: [00:27:46] So thank the Lord, I had some peers with me. There were five of us, maybe seven, if you count some others who joined on. There were seven of us and I was getting my clock cleaned on the team. Don't get me wrong, but they all thought that was how it was. You know, I was a junior compared to my peers. I was smoking

It, you know, I Was over there. You know, I was able to actually pull off these Little marginal tasks, but you know, I was definitely ahead of the pack There. So although I was a complete, you know, value negative on my team for, you know, a decent amount of time they go compared to your peers, you're actually, you know, not doing too bad. I also had to go through presentations and client calls and stuff like that when I went out to go pitch the actual prototypes. And my progress there was really good as well. So although I thought I sucked compared to my team, the technical people and the really good salespeople, I still sucked. But I was getting better and I took solace. And I really liked, you know, working for really smart people because they challenge you people who are good at what they do, because they challenge you. They show you where you are and you've got to keep going In order to get to the next level. And that's what I did at any point.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:53] Did you pick your head up and be like, OK, what is it? Where what's the next step? Like what? I guess we can kind of start talking about like, when did you start looking for a transition, what was the thought process behind that? Did you even know where to look? I mean, who did you have a mentor like what was going on in this whole process?

Dedline: [00:29:11] Right, so probably about two years into it, I had developed a pretty good fundamental understanding of computer science theory and enterprise architecture, so I understood what was coming down the pipe from a project perspective. I could piece it out and I could usually integrate it with very little help at the end there. And I was finally good at that. On the sales side, I was really doing well at presentations, probably even more so than my technical side. So I knew I didn't have anything there. I had cleaned through all the certifications that I thought I would need in order to get to the next step. But it didn't really hit me. We had a lot of our teammates got poached by people like Google, Microsoft, stuff like that. So I knew there was options there, but I felt like there was still a little bit more for me to learn. I kept progressing. I got deep into some technologies that I thought would be useful for me later down the line, notably block chain. Spent about a year and a half doing pretty deep stuff on the block chain side of things. But it got to a point where it's like, you know, Cotton's white papers, the stuff I was doing starting To become, you know, you Start asking yourself, what next? And I wrote about this on Wall Street Oasis that, you know, at my job there wasn't a lot of upward mobility once you got past the first jump. I made it to lead architect. Yeah. After that, it got very vertical and the odds of you making the jump internally were very slim, at least in my organization. And then I like I look externally and found that it was I'm not going to say, nigh impossible, but it was going to be very hard for me to lateral over to another business unit. But I knew in the back of my mind it's like, I'm pretty good at this job. I have all these external facing certifications, and it just got to a point to where I was kind of I wasn't seeing the vertical mobility I was looking for. And I didn't jump ship when everybody else jumped ship, and I was happy for doing so because I had built up this technical sales acumen that I think was nearing world class. Maybe not on the technical side, but the sales scale.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:10] Sure. Yeah.

Dedline: [00:31:10] And it just got to a point to where it's like, if you guys aren't going to listen to me or if you're not going to show me the way up, I have to look externally. And so, you know, I really worked on my LinkedIn profile, you know, polished up my certifications,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:24] My tell me about the certifications. You mentioned the sort of you mentioned the certifications of your time. Is there specific ones for like this type of enterprise architecture, type, career or role?

Dedline: [00:31:36] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely to anybody listening, I recommend taking if you're thinking about a role like this vie for the Cisco certified Network architect, that'll give you A very sound understanding and networks. I recommend the Amazon Web Services Solution Architect certification that'll give you a good idea as to how to plug componentry together in order to create solutions. And I'm trying to think of any other certifications that I have that I really like. Those two right there, I think would give you a fantastic Base for A technical base for understanding how to create solutions, especially these days where everything is in the cloud so as to.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:16] Ok, so you're you have those certifications. You're kind of hitting your stride a little bit on the technical side. But really on the sales side, you're doing these presentations. People are really impressed with your ability to kind of stand in front of a client and deliver the message, right? And so but you still feel like there's very limited you're very you're already at lead architect here. And so you start polishing your LinkedIn profile and then how are you looking at jobs? Is it similar large companies where you're looking at like other enterprise architect roles or like, what's the next transit? What's typically the Next level up for this type of role?

Dedline: [00:32:53] So what I was trying to do at my blue chip technology company was very much level up to lead architects at a higher level or, you know, they call them client CTOs or client technical architects. But those positions just weren't opening up, and I knew what the position looked like. It was very much like those two roles that I knew of internally, but I was just looking for them externally, and I applied to these jobs primarily not because I'm lazy, but because I thought there was plenty of opportunity on LinkedIn and LinkedIn. Only really, I didn't do Monster. I didn't do. Indeed, I didn't do any of those. I found everything that I was looking for on LinkedIn. So, you know, you go in there, you go through the automated process. And after about spending a month, I have five interviews because of the experience I had accumulated and my specific niche skill set in the health care industry. And so when those jobs became available, they weren't plentiful, but there was so few people who could do those types of roles that I almost always made it to the second round of these interviews, right? And the firm that I ended up signing on with. They were standing up a health care vertical. Think of this as a Large Fortune 20 firm with a corporate with, let's say, an initiative internally to stand up a health care vertical in order to sell their products better to health care clients. Got it. And you know, the job required. It was. It was kind of written as a low level executive. You know, you've got to go out and you got to preach the good word of the firm, the products. You know how they're changing health care, how they improve clinical outcomes and change lives. But also there was not only that speaking portion of it, but also, you know, solution orchestration and, you know, like a business development component of it in order to get the right partners in their right. And, you know, working on with some of the more strategic partners, the larger partners. So all those things right there really appealed to me. I applied originally got declined and they came back and told me, Hey, would you like this role? And it was a role, probably, you know, a level below. I said no, because again, I wasn't desperate. I had five other interviews out there, right? They end up calling me back and they go, Hey, you know, the other candidate fell out, you're back in. We'd love you to meet and interview with our senior vice president in order to kind of give it the checkmark I interviewed with him. Everything went fantastic, and I've been working here ever since.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:26] Cool and tell me about that. So it sounds like you're are you managing more people at this new role? Are you? Is it more just more speaking? Tell me about that, or is it more like just you're more senior, right? So it's less about doing the actual architecting, I'll call it and more about, like just the messaging around it.

Dedline: [00:35:45] Is that fair? Right, right? Yeah. No, that's very fair. And again, I went from health care solutions architect To director of health Care industry solutions, or that Type of, you know, more Abstracted away from the technology, just as you mentioned, because you're more senior and whatnot. Yeah, but I was not given a team. I am an individual contributor and very much they just they were trying to stand up this vertical and I was very much in charge of, you know, external facing collateral, ensuring that the solutions that we were running out were sound that they made sense to the business, OK? I did a lot of proof checking. I spent a lot of time building my own content, my own material. I spent the first six months really trying to understand the product portfolio and what we could stitch together. That would sell that would add business, add value to these businesses. So I say for like the first year, it was very much standing this thing up from the ground up. You know, how was our firm going to come to market in the health care vertical? Got it. And then going out there and spreading the word. So there's the speaking portion of it all. And I remember going to all these speaking events. You'd start off internally taking those who would come and visit the firm, you know, they pay for their flights and they go, OK, pitch the vision to these people. I would bomb because it was, you know, the next level of I was no longer talking to business technical people about the solutions you had to abstract and you had to talk about it from a business perspective, which I kind of did at my previous firm. But this just illuminated that it was a completely Different audience talk Track agenda, audience, all the above. And so for the first year, I really struggled from a presentation standpoint. I remember asking my boss and, you know, he was trying his best to help me out. Is it okay? I think you'd be good for Toastmasters. I might do it. I don't suck that bad. You know, it's just I just need some more reps under my belt. So then, you know, the year really getting it in and dialing it in. And then by year. Who where I am this year, yeah, it's pretty much all second hand, and I'm speaking at the largest conferences in the world from not only an IP, but a health care perspective. And things have really caught on there. And the other types of, you know, the other facets of my business, you know, the strategic partnerships, the business development, the solution Orchestration, if I have enough political capital and Not an Aura, but like people know who I am to a degree, they know that I put in hard work. They know that my ideas are sound. They know my brand. And so I've really been able to leverage That after the first Year of really putting my head down and getting my ass kicked to second year where it's like, All right, I've arrived here we go

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:37] There. So tell me a little about you were pretty well paid coming out of undergrad. Can you tell me a little bit about the progression? So you had over three years, almost Four years at your first firm? And then was the page up significant? So I assume you were getting Close to six figures at your first firm by the end, if not more, with the Jump significant.

Dedline: [00:38:58] I very, very significant.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:00] Do you mind sharing a running time I left?

Dedline: [00:39:02] Yeah, yeah, no problem. By the time I left my first firm, I think I topped out the final year at one 12 all in bonuses, that type of stuff. Yeah, when I got my offer from the other firm, I was looking for one 20. Maybe like a nice little performance

Bonus, you know, or maybe 130 130 would have been crazy, right? Yeah, I get on the phone with HR and we're talking out price and whatnot, and he starts breaking out what I'm about to get paid the tender. And I went in there. I asked for one thing he's like, Well, you know, we can't even pay you that little because it's against, you know what, we're about to hire you for. He goes, I have to give you one hundred and fifty five to start, and you're entitled to company shares worth about fifty thousand a year. And there's two more bonuses that you could hit once pretty much a given based on company performance, and it's about 17 to 19 percent of your annual pay, plus your manager. If you really like to, you can give you an additional twenty nine percent on top of what you're making all in. If I were to, like, knock it out of the park, I'd be three. Maybe, yeah, three actually, plus what I was making at of my previous job that was that came as a serious shock. Money is no longer an issue for me, so that was a very nice feeling.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:22] But what do you think? I mean, I think what's really interesting about your background and you as a guest is just talking to you. You really have An interesting kind of match of skill sets. So you have like the technical side in terms of like enterprise architect. Yet you're not good at math, which is really shocking. So, you know you have, but you're a speaker, right? So it's like you can speak well, you probably carry yourself well at these firms. And so you're put in an area of leadership because your client facing your company facing and that's super valuable, especially when you're bringing the technical skills on the backside. So I can totally understand. It doesn't surprise me That you Saw that big jump in that you're where you are right now, just having talk to you right now. So congratulations on that. That's really exciting. And then tell me about like, you know, future is it is the trajectory similar or is it just keep going up every year? Or is it more like, OK, you have that major jump when you shifted? And then it's just like you keep getting more shares every year? And that's kind of the boost.

Dedline: [00:41:24] So, you know, I have grandparents who are like, this is what you do, you're going to hold on to this stock for the rest of your life. You retire at 50, you know, you retire to a golf course and whatnot. I get it. You know, if I stayed in this role for probably another 20 Years, I can see the path to senior vice president. Perhaps even, you know, sea level in 20 years, if I really continue at the pace that I'm moving.

Yeah, and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:51] You have millions of dollars in the bank and yeah, but whatever. Ok, so yeah, I

Dedline: [00:41:55] Mean, the trajectory is fairly once you make it past like a certain level within an organization, for us, it's the director position that I'm at. Then you can kind of see where you go up. There's just a very linear progression. You know what you have to do. It's a very it's very bureaucratic, very political. But you know, the amount of time that you put in and hours and days and years counts a lot in order for qualifying for those types of

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:22] Roles, you got to pay your dues, you've got to pay your dues, you've got to be showing your face, you've got to be playing the game. Yeah, it's a large corporation, so it's like it's going to be like you said, very political. Is your boss in the right seat? Is he moving up or she moving up? Right. That's a big that probably plays a huge role. Totally, totally. So tell me about that. Or do you feel like your position properly? Do you feel like you don't really care because you don't see yourself sticking around for 20 years?

Dedline: [00:42:51] So what I'm doing there is, you know, it took me a long time to be cognizant of that stuff. And, you know, I write about it. I wrote about, you know, anti-institutional ism where, you know, you don't want to stay running in place, where somebody dangles a carrot. That doesn't really mean anything to you if that's not the game you want to play. Right. And so, you know, you look at exactly everything that you talked about people's political standings, where are they at? Who do they know? Where are they at in the hierarchy? Are they going to retire? You know? What about the business? Is it going to shift this way? Is that going to open up a slide? Right? It's sure you can play that game all day, and I do play that game all day, but it's understanding where you want to go in the future. And for me right now, it's I'm doing something that I've been doing since I started, and that is to not only play your job in your institution, but also you have to play the field. I'm heavily involved in a lot of initiatives outside of my job, whether it be professional organizations or, you know, working with individuals on cool projects who you know, one off very much running the speaking circuit this year. You know, I built it up to where again, I'm doing this and hymns this year, like, I'm

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:01] You're building your personal brand, you're building your personal brand.

Dedline: [00:44:06] Yeah, yeah, totally. And thank you for nominating me for Forbes this year. I appreciate that I'm going for that, and I feel like I'll have a level of political clout to where I'll have more moving power, whichever direction I want to go. But again, it's also gives me the luxury of I can kind of sit back and just kind of take it in. I don't have to jump anything too quickly. But I guess long story short to your question is, I'm kind of just hanging out Right now. I'm waiting to see if something presents itself every now and then I'll get an idea for a start-up that I go crazy for. For about a week or two, I'm out there drawing architectural diagrams. I'm lining up who I'd put in there And then I kind of just, you know, do I Really want to do this stuff starts pick up at work. So I'm kind of waiting, sitting back, wait. And I have the luxury, You know, I have to really bust my Ass for as much time as I have That Nobody can really do my job. I like the Position I'm in. I like my boss. I like the work that I do, and I don't necessarily feel Compelled to go anywhere. So that's kind of where I'm at.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:08] That's great, man. That's a lot I wish. I think a lot of people wish they were in a similar boat where they enjoy coming to work every day, you know, So There's something to be said for that. There's a lot to be said for that. So yeah, the start-up ideas can be sexy and whatnot until you start digging in there and you Realize, Wait a second, I'm going to have to Put everything at risk that I've worked so hard for in terms of maybe all your savings and maybe whatnot, especially if you're going to do a start up in this space, I'd assume that it'd be pretty expensive. But anyways, any other thoughts, any other kind of before we call any words of wisdom, you would give your younger self. You know, think back to like your high school days or your college Days and how Lost you were and in terms of where you are now. Anything you tell kind of similar numbers that are at that age.

Dedline: [00:45:55] Yeah, I think it's important. I think it's important for your younger self and as you're growing up to really understand yourself, what are you interested in, what gives you up at the beginning of each day and excites you to do what you do and to have an idea of who you are in this world? A level of self-awareness, a level of self-discovery, I think is imperative for understanding and maintaining happiness, you know, through your life, not only through career, but as you progress through the journey of life. And then second of all, I really stress, you know, going in there and getting the hours in and working hard in order to get to where you need to be, wherever you think that Is and Always be surveying where you see Opportunity like I Fell into health care. It felt like not only from a gut instinct, but everything I looked at. I should stay here. And then I fell into kind of, you know, technology and places where I excelled. I was good. I feel like if you're an individual coming up, you want to stay where you're near or at the front of the pack, always because this world is very competitive and you need to find the niches, the areas and how you add value in almost every situation in your career. So always be cognizant of that. Always be looking forward, look for the opportunity, push in the chips when you have them, cash them in when you need to and just always stay surveying, have a level of self-awareness and have an idea of where you're going. That's what I tell my younger self. I have a little brother who I tell that to and I firmly believe in on a day to day basis.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:35] That self-awareness, I think it's easy to say it's hard to do right. I mean, it's hard to teach. Self-aware agreed. I think it's one of those things that sometimes just age in time helps teach that in getting, like you said, getting killed a few times or getting, you know, slammed at your new job when you think you've you won, when you've won the trophy, getting the job offer and then you realize, wait a second, this work thing is not so easy. So thank you so much for taking the time deadline. I think it's been. It's been super informative. And yeah, really appreciate it.

Dedline: [00:48:08] Major Patrick, I really appreciate the time I thank you for everything that you've done with Wall Street, Oasis and I look forward to a great future on the boards and with everybody listening.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:17] I appreciate it. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street, Oasis, if you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis and till next time.

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