You Never Practice the Skills That Get You Promoted | MIT's Mark Herschberg

Director by 35 was the plan. Now every missed milestone feels like proof that something's wrong with you. Map your path to Director    • Engineering Director Promotion Plan (Step-...   I asked MIT engineer and CTO Mark Herschberg how often a project ends up exactly the way it was planned on day one. His answer was near zero. Scope shifts, a CEO changes direction six months in, and sometimes the whole thing gets cancelled because there's better ROI somewhere else. Nobody calls that team failures, but when your career plan slips, you call yourself one. A career plan should work like a project plan. It's clear for the next few weeks, fuzzy further out, and adjusted as you learn. A missed milestone is often a trade-off you made on purpose, like refusing to spend three years kissing the ring of a boss you couldn't stand. Most of Mark's career-planning questions aren't about work at all. They're about family, where you want to live, and the impact you want to have. In this episode: why a master's degree won't get you promoted, how ten minutes of negotiating can be worth $40,000, how to build a peer group that practices leadership the way athletes scrimmage, and the fantasy chess question that helps you work backward from where you want to be. Optimize for life happiness, not job titles. New here? Follow the show. Find out what's holding back your next move → https://calendly.com/oaco-client-succ... Zach White is a mechanical engineer from Purdue who led engineering teams at Whirlpool before founding Oasis of Courage. He's coached hundreds of engineering leaders toward growth, clarity, and more happiness in their careers. His work is built on one belief: you shouldn't have to sacrifice your life to reach your potential. Also in Season 2:    • How Engineering Managers Get Promoted With...      • How to Get Promoted from Engineering Manag...      • Why Great Engineers Get Passed Over for Pr...   ============= Chapters: 0:00 - Purdue vs. MIT: two engineers, one ballroom rivalry 1:48 - Why ballroom dance hooks engineers 5:06 - The setback that won Mark first place 6:42 - Why school never taught you career skills 10:09 - What your engineering degree was never meant to do 11:42 - The real world has no answer box 13:29 - The 10 career skills everyone mentions and nobody teaches 15:05 - The ten-minute negotiation worth $40,000 17:57 - How to build skills school can't teach 19:20 - Train like an athlete, not a student 19:57 - Peer learning groups: read, discuss, scrimmage 21:57 - Your career is 90% game time 24:14 - Four free benefits of peer learning 25:49 - Don't let your company be the barrier 26:54 - Do you need a career plan? 28:03 - Plan your career like a project 30:02 - Working backward from CTO 31:58 - When you miss your own milestones 34:24 - Optimize for life happiness, not job titles 36:16 - The project triangle, applied to your life 37:00 - Where to find Mark's book and free resources 39:13 - The fantasy chess question