I rebuilt my career three times.Each chapter taught me lessons I didn't expect to learn

The meeting seems to always happen on Friday.

A few months after a colossal theatrical failure, the movie production company I worked for was in serious trouble. The conversation followed the typical script, "We love you, we love your work, but we have to let you go."

If it were just me, it would have been okay, but I had a 10-month-old baby and a wife waiting for me at home.

So the next Monday I got up at the same time I would have gone to work. I sat down at my desk with a stack of programming books and started teaching myself to code.

I did that the next Monday too. And the one after that.

For ten months.

But I had a problem. I had convinced myself that I'd never become a software developer. The reasons were simple. I had no formal education in computer science, and I knew that I was not smart enough.

But with everything on the line, I couldn't afford to listen to these thoughts.

So after 10 months of practice and study, I started my first job as a software developer at a financial company. I learned to code, but more than that, I learned I didn't have to remain the same person today that I was yesterday.

As the squeaky door to our mailbox swung open, I pulled out the only item inside. A check for $4,200. The first payout from my first online course.

I blinked, walked inside, and handed the paper to my wife. She looked at it, smiled, and said, "Yeah... You should do more of that."

What followed was fifteen years of "doing more of that". More than 15 courses published. Hundreds of thousands of hours of student watch time, and over $2.5M in course profits.

But I had a huge problem. I just couldn't see it yet.

Every course I made lived on someone else's platform. Every student I taught was their student first. I didn't know I should've moved those people into my own ecosystem. That I should've built my own audience and my own business alongside the publisher's.

Nobody in my world was talking about it, and no one with experience was telling me what I should've done differently.

I spent fifteen years building someone else's audience and calling it mine. By the time I saw it, the opportunity was gone.

Fifteen years after that first check, the same publisher changed ownership and changed direction. They decided the authors on their platform were making too much money. They decided it was time to renegotiate.

The new terms would reduce my royalties by 68%.

There wasn't much choice in the matter. I could agree to do more courses at the lower rate, and some authors did. For me, though, the decision was clear. The idea of competing with other authors to work for pennies on the dollar never made much sense to me.

So I walked.

In that moment, I realized something important. My success as an author, and what I'd learned about transforming people's lives, were the most valuable assets I had to give.

Now I work with education entrepreneurs who run multiple six- or seven-figure businesses. Their businesses are growing, but inside they're asking themselves... "*What's my next decision going to cost me if I get it wrong?*"

More often than not, the answer is sitting in a blind spot. It's the opportunity hidden from you because you're too close to your business to see it. The years I spent missing my own are what make me good at naming yours.