Six Lessons That Changed My Life Forever

Exactly this time 11 years ago, I resigned from my role at a global consulting firm and flew back to Zimbabwe. My Australian dream, to quickly move up the corporate ladder and finally vanquish poverty that had haunted my family for decades, had vanished like a whisper in a storm.

When I walked up the isle of a giant Qantas 747 QF64 in the Spring of 2007, I was bursting with hope and enthusiasm. But as I wrote in my Memoir, the Gift of Obstacles, the first few years in Australia proved my harder than I ever anticipated. The constant struggle to belong, coupled with the deeply entrenched belief that my odds to succeed here as a young African were razor thin proved overwhelming.

But there was an even deeper and less spoken problem.         

Back home, technical skills and academic excellence were the greatest predictors of success, closely followed by hard yards. Sadly, for six years, no one told me that my previous advantages would be short lived in my new environment.

Moving up the ladder demanded political savviness, commercial acumen, executive communication and thought leadership skills - none of which were taught in university or my technical certs.

I felt like the Claude Makelele of audit teams, but year after year missed promotion.

With no relatable role models or proven formula to break out of mediocrity, I started to feel like a caged wild animal, a bird with clipped wings. Slowly, I became a pressure cooker of depressed rage.          

But my biggest successes and career advancement have universally come from defeats. Things changed in the summer of 2013, when I embraced six lessons that fundamentally changed my career and life.

1. Deep self-awareness is what drives transformation. I no longer had time to feed the victim mindset, seek confirmation bias or surround myself with those who saw glass ceilings everywhere. Change would only come from acknowledging that my problems were of my own making. Change started when i started to ruthlessly analyse my tactics with clear objectivity, impersonality, and heartlessness. Only the cold hard truth mattered; the world owes me nothing.

2. To move up, I needed to start de-emphasizing my academic and technical certifications. To make up for lost time, I had to sharpen my personal brand, anchored on compelling and insightful thought leadership and irrefutable skills. I would only go up on my own terms, not as a token of racial diversity.

3. Nobody excels in any craft if they are being pulled in dozen different directions. I placed persuasive writing was at the centre of my strategy. I knew that compelling thought leadership would amplify my global impact, radically improve my executive communication skills and open up public speaking doors. Like anything in life, the sharper the focus, the greater the results. It’s way better to concentrate on one supremely important goal until you beat it into submission, than attempt to spread yourself thinly across everything.

4. But the beginning of my writing journey was discouraging. Everything felt forced, my drafts were underdone, rambling and desperately weak. I came an inch close to rationalising defeat, telling myself that I wasn’t innately gifted and writing wasn’t my passion. That’s when I stumbled across Robert Greene’s wisdom that would change my life forever.

In his book, Mastery, Greene loathes at the "follow your passion" cliché’, arguing that true passion emerges when you dedicate yourself to a craft, develop deep skills, and achieve a sense of competence and control.        

5. Pushing myself through prolonged episodes of boredom and tedium eventually landed me in the most beautiful place – I found the flow, that state of constant creativity, immense pleasure, and extreme productivity – what elite performers call “the zone”. For me, not to write is to die. Since carefully studying eight books on business writing 11 years ago, I have written almost daily. This has remained one of my most important career decisions.

6. I sensed that the years of the generalist were way past us. Working in IT Risk, I felt like a Jake of all trades but master of none. To run away from competition and become the obvious choice, I needed to go vertical and very deep, not narrow and wide. I spent a great deal of time carving out a niche within a niche, carefully studying my target audience and meeting them precisely where they were looking for experts like me. Finding that sweet spot, where my passion, deep expertise and what the market was willing to pay a premium for was the master stroke that changed my life forever.

As we step into 2025, I am determined more than ever to help fellow technology and cyber security professionals radically boost their personal brands. Through my already proven eight week program, that carefully blends private and group coaching (as well as several actionable toolkits), I am ready to work with eight professionals globally sick of the status quo, amplify their uniqueness, develop compelling social proof, and turn their current setback into a fabulous leadership or entrepreneurial opportunities.         

I will only share practical, rubber-meets-the-road strategies that I have deployed with great success. I have zero tolerance for academic theories. But don’t just take my word for it. This is what Maryam Shoraka Head of Security Operations – Sydney Australia said, “I was hesitant to invest in personal branding coaching, but it was one of the best decisions I've made. Phil provided me with the tools and strategies to craft a compelling personal brand that truly reflects my unique value proposition. I’m now attracting high-quality opportunities, building stronger relationships, more confident and effective in my professional life.”

As I have mentioned before this coaching program is not for everyone, I will only work with you if you are willing to take extreme accountability and roll up the sleeves and engage in some serious work. Most importantly, you are very good at what you do but you are sick of feeling unheard, unseen and overlooked for senior roles.

Please DM me for a free consultation call if you are ready to become the obvious choice, reach higher, maximise your earnings and live freely.

Link to coaching program page in the comments section.