Taking Responsibility for Your Career
Why intention—not momentum—should be what drives you forward
Most careers don’t begin with a clear, internal decision. They begin with proximity. A parent mentions a profession. A friend lands a job somewhere interesting. A professor nudges a student toward a “practical” path. None of this is malicious—it’s often well-intended—but it sets a pattern early: direction comes from outside rather than from within. Over time, momentum replaces choice, and the distinction between the two gets blurry.
That’s how drift sets in. Not the dramatic kind where someone wakes up miserable, but the quieter version where things are… fine. You’re competent. You’re employed. You’re advancing just enough to stay put. Yet the distance between what you’re doing and what actually feels meaningful keeps widening. The danger isn’t stagnation; it’s acclimation. People get used to misalignment because it doesn’t hurt enough to force action.
One accelerant of that drift is how broadly many people define themselves. “I can do a little of everything” sounds flexible, even admirable. In practice, it often muddies the signal. Markets don’t hire for range; they hire for clarity. Specialists are easier to place, easier to trust, easier to advocate for internally. When your value proposition is diffuse—even if your skill set is strong—you end up relying on effort instead of leverage, which rarely scales.
A more useful way to think about fulfillment is less romantic and more structural. Satisfaction doesn’t require perfect alignment—just enough of it. If the majority of your time is spent doing work you’re good at and genuinely enjoy, the remaining friction is tolerable. Every role carries some administrative drag, some compromise, some work you’d rather avoid. The problem isn’t that those tasks exist; it’s when they become the job. That distinction matters, because it reframes the question from “Do I need to start over?” to “What exactly is out of balance?”
I’ve seen this imbalance most clearly when talking with UI and UX designers who are stuck in job searches. Many tell the same story: dozens, sometimes hundreds, of applications submitted with almost nothing to show for it. On the surface, it looks like persistence. Underneath, it often functions as something else—activity as a proxy for progress. Applying all day feels like work because it fills the hours and produces receipts. But it’s often the lowest-leverage move in the whole process. In a 2024 Wall Street Journal report citing hiring-platform data, referral candidates—who typically make up less than 10% of applicants—accounted for a disproportionately large share of hires, contributing to the broader finding that roughly 70–85% of roles are ultimately filled through some form of referral or existing relationship, not cold applications. The math explains why “just keep applying” so often turns into treadmill work. Even on the employer side, referral-based hiring consistently shows up as one of the most effective channels: Employ’s 2024 Recruiter Nation Report lists employee referrals among the top sources recruiters point to when evaluating hiring outcomes.
This is where a lot of capable people get stuck doing the wrong kind of labor. They optimize for visible effort instead of effective action. Sending another résumé is easier than reaching out to someone you admire. Clicking “apply” is safer than asking for a conversation. But careers rarely change through volume alone. They change through trust, signal, and sustained presence—through people who know how you think, not just what you’ve done.
Managing a career well isn’t about dramatic reinvention or constant motion. It’s about noticing drift before it hardens into identity. Clarifying what you actually want to be known for. Designing your time with intention instead of inheriting it by default. And understanding that progress usually comes from fewer, more deliberate moves—not more noise. Few people have a clearer view into how these dynamics play out, both inside organizations and at the individual level, than this week’s guest. Eggs! The Podcast guest and founder and CEO of The Human Reach, AJ Mizes, has spent years on both sides of that equation, helping people replace drift with direction—and doing the same in his own career.
Why Capable People Stall—and How Careers Actually Move
Few people understand how careers really move—and why they so often stall—from both sides of the system. AJ Mizes has spent the better part of two decades inside the machinery that shapes modern work, helping leaders navigate growth, transition, and uncertainty with more clarity and less noise.
Mizes is the founder and CEO of The Human Reach, a human potential institute that works primarily with directors, VPs, and senior leaders who feel stuck despite outward success. Before launching his firm, he built a long career in HR and recruiting, including six years at Facebook, where he served as an HR director supporting large-scale teams across emerging technology initiatives. There, his role wasn’t administrative—it was strategic, focused on coaching leaders, shaping teams, and holding a high bar for performance and growth.
That vantage point—part operator, part advisor—gives Mizes a rare credibility. He’s seen how hiring decisions are actually made, how careers quietly drift off course, and what it takes to realign without blowing everything up. His work today reflects that realism: less about reinvention, more about intention; less about chasing titles, more about building signal, leverage, and momentum where it matters.
Where Careers Actually Get Stuck
AJ’s perspective is valuable not because it’s motivational, but because it’s operational. He’s seen where careers stall, why effort so often fails to translate into movement, and what actually changes outcomes.
“Three out of four people feel stuck in their careers.”
Actionable insight:
That number reframes the problem. Feeling stuck isn’t a personal failure—it’s the default state when momentum replaces intention. If stagnation feels common, it’s because it is.
“A lot of people follow careers their parents wanted for them, or their culture wanted for them, or because a friend was moving in that direction.”
Actionable insight:
External validation is a powerful force early on. The danger is letting borrowed expectations quietly harden into identity before you’ve interrogated whether they still fit..
“Companies are hiring specialists, not generalists.”
Actionable insight:
Range may make you adaptable, but clarity makes you hireable. When your signal is broad, decision-makers don’t know where to place you—and hesitation kills momentum.
“People who spend about 70% of their time doing things they enjoy and are good at are far more likely to feel fulfilled.”
Actionable insight:
Fulfillment isn’t about perfection. It’s about allocation. When the work you dislike becomes the majority of your time, burnout isn’t a mystery—it’s math.
“Most people don’t prepare for interviews, and they don’t know how to tell their story.”
Actionable insight:
Interviews aren’t exams; they’re narratives. The candidates who stand out aren’t winging it—they’ve done the work to translate experience into clear, specific stories.
“It can be as small as sending the thank-you note first.”
Actionable insight:
Outcomes often hinge on details that feel insignificant in isolation. When decision-makers are torn, small signals of thoughtfulness, preparation, and follow-through can tip the scale.
Choosing Direction Over Drift
Careers rarely fall apart all at once. They fray at the edges. A little less energy here. A little more tolerance there. Over time, the gap between what we’re capable of and what we’re actually building widens—not because of a single bad decision, but because no one ever stopped to question the direction.
What makes AJ’s perspective useful isn’t that it promises easy answers. It’s that it strips away comforting myths. That progress comes from volume. That flexibility is always an advantage. That fulfillment requires total reinvention. More often, the work is quieter: clarifying what you want to be known for, reallocating your time, and investing in relationships that compound instead of reset.
Direction doesn’t demand a leap. It demands attention. And the people who manage their careers well aren’t the ones making the most noise—they’re the ones making fewer, more intentional moves, long before drift has the chance to harden into identity.
Thanks for reading,
—Ryan
If you’re ready for life to feel more intentional, more aligned, and more within your control, this guide gives you the structure to make that shift real. Your next version starts with a single decision. Get the field guide
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Ready for more?
Catch AJ Mizes’ interview in its entirety on Eggs! The Podcast.
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Reading list
If you're looking to go deeper on the themes from this week's newsletter, here are a few books that pair well with the conversation and offer a broader perspective:
Designing Your Life — Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
A practical, non-romantic approach to career design rooted in iteration rather than reinvention. Especially useful for people who feel stuck but aren’t interested in blowing everything up to “find their passion.”So Good They Can’t Ignore You — Cal Newport
A strong counterweight to passion-first career thinking. Newport argues that career satisfaction comes from developing rare and valuable skills—an idea that aligns closely with the specialist-versus-generalist tension explored in this issue.The Pathless Path — Paul Millerd
An exploration of modern career drift and why traditional ladders no longer fit many capable people. Millerd’s work resonates with anyone questioning inherited definitions of success without defaulting to hustle culture.Never Eat Alone — Keith Ferrazzi
A classic, but still relevant. Less about networking tricks and more about long-term relationship building—the kind that actually changes career trajectories, not just LinkedIn metrics.
More to explore
The Human Reach - https://thehumanreach.com
AJ Mizes on linked - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajmizes
Work with me
Ryan Roghaar - Fractional CMO/Creative Director/Art Director: https://rogha.ar/portfolio
RŌG Health - A commercial readiness and strategy firm for medtech companies, helping CEOs identify what’s blocking growth and make clear, de-risked decisions around commercialization, partnerships, and fundraising. https://roghealth.com
Eggs! The Podcast: https://www.eggscast.com
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Brilliant breakdown of how careers actually move. The specialist vs generalist thing hits differntly when you've actually been in that trap of being 'good at everything' but nobody really knows what to hire you for. Spent way too many years doing the mass aplicaion grind before figuring out that one strong connection beats a hundred cold resumes any day.