Your Missing X-Factor: How 5 Minutes Could Change Your Life

By J. Conwell

Master Your Leadership Game: Elevate Your Career with Proven Strategies for Corporate Excellence!

In the fast-paced world of corporate professionals, success is not just

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Jun 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798822940444

J. Conwell

Joel Conwell Arcieri, a former pastor turned tech professional, leverages his diverse background to revolutionize leadership culture. With a master's in counseling, Joel brings a unique perspective to corporate America. Residing in Greenville, SC, with his wife and two daughters, Joel shares the transformative tool that propelled him through three promotions and an extensive network in Your Missing X-Factor.

Book preview

Part 1:

Certainty – You are the SME of yourself

Chapter 1:

There is an Author for Everyone

"The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain themselves, but wiser people so full doubts."

- Bertrand Russell

IF YOU’VE EVER wanted to be an expert, I have great news for you! You ARE an expert! You are the expert of yourself and if you can develop certainty in yourself (the first part of Mantra) you can make incredible moves. This part of the book is all about diving into that idea. We are going to be talking about how each of us is a total pro in our own story, the go-to guru of our experiences, feelings, and choices.

You know when you’re the one who knows the best place to grab a burger in town? That’s because you’ve tried a bunch and nailed down what makes a great burger for you. Or in the corporate world, this is like the person who is an incredibly skilled Software Engineer or Data Scientist. Those people are the Subject Matter Experts (SME) that you bring to a meeting to give input into something that you don’t have experience in. Those job-specific hard skills are incredibly important to succeeding in both the workplace and life. The same can be with your life! You have been the one living it, feeling it, and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. That’s your superpower!

That is why the first part of Mantra has to be Certainty. Of my Mantra shared in the introduction, Certainty is found in the very first words of I am someone who. Every single Mantra that I’ve helped others come up with begins with that same exact phrase.

Illustration 1.0

Interviewer: why do you think people in Tokyo work too much?

Person: Because the city never stops to sleep. Not completely. Sometimes I’ll be out with friends and see that my boss is still in the office at 11pm.

I stopped scrolling when I watched that Reel on Instagram. I thought back to my time in New York with my wife so I closed Instagram and opened my Photos app. I scrolled until I found a picture I took when we visited NYC a few years back – it was from the top of the Empire State Building. I stared at the picture and thought about how in that city, that is known for never sleeping, there is always someone still awake doing something. I thought about how wild that is. There are always hundreds, thousands, millions of people doing things while you are asleep. And those people are people whose paths will never cross yours but whose lives are still just as important.

There is this psychological term called Sonder that you must know and understand before we continue. Sonder is defined as the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. This means that their life is just as populated with their own relationships, goals, dreams, fears, and so forth. This story/life that they are vividly living continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder

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I love that definition. It feels almost movie-esque. We will talk more about Sonder as it pertains to positivity in the next chapter. I know, I know – that just sounds like something you’d hear from the pot-smoking college drop out, but it is incredibly profound. Everyone has a story.

There is another term/trend that is often mocked online and that is main-character syndrome or main character energy. These are people who walk around like they are the main character in a movie and everyone else is like an NPC (non-playable character) or secondary character. These people will treat you as such - you are a means to an end in the worst way and a guide or companion in the best way. Why is this such a big trend? Because we are all desperate to feel as if we are important. To feel as if we matter and that our lives have meaning. Everyone of you reading this book right now are living just as vivid of a life as I am as I write this. You may have just dropped your kids off at school. You may be on your way to class. You may be in an airport about to board a plane for business. You are the main character in your story, but so is the single mom working two jobs. So is the soldier deployed overseas. So am I as I write this while my oldest daughter is whining to get out of her room from her nap. I forget where I heard it but I think of the phrase missing once is a mistake, missing twice is a choice when I think about being a main character. I used to play HALO for hours when I was a middle schooler and when you made a mistake and died, you would go back to your last saved checkpoint. Then, hopefully with a different gameplan, you try and get past where you died.

In our lives, we have many choices. We can choose to grow or stay in one place. We can choose to eat healthy or get fast food one more time. We can choose to go for a walk or watch another episode of The Bear (that’s me by the way). Some people, those who are typically the most famous achievers, chose to give it their all when they didn’t want to. People like Michael Jordan, Eric Liddell, Sean White, Tony Hawk, Elon Musk, etc. These people all had the same life opportunities in the sense that they all had opportunities to make choices like you and I. However, many people with high potential don’t make the best choices - they often underachieve because of laziness or fear.

I often think about my high school buddy—a real physical powerhouse. This guy could step into any sport and play it like he’d been doing it forever. The crazy part? He’d only get better the more he played. I remember him deciding he wanted some extra conditioning before basketball season, so he casually joined the Cross Country team halfway through their season and ended up snagging second place in the state. The guy was a straight-A student, the model kid who kept it all together.

Fast forward to college, and things took a turn. He dropped out in his first year. Tried another college, and it happened again. Now, I know LinkedIn isn’t the ultimate measure of success, but you won’t find him there. Since the second drop-out, he’s been off the radar. It’s a bit disheartening when someone with what seems like boundless potential ends up underachieving and fizzling out.

Before you think I’m just throwing shade at old high school pals, I’ll own up to it—I’ve willingly let myself underachieve too.

Growing up, I was all about sports—Soccer, Basketball, you name it. But here’s the twist: I wasn’t nearly as talented as my high school buddy. So, in every situation, I put on this act like I was never nervous. Posturing became my default move. I’d wear this brave face, making it seem like I was way more confident than I actually felt. If I looked okay, maybe no one would notice the whirlwind of nerves inside me.

On top of that, I played this game of pretending I didn’t care as much as others did. Because, you know, if things didn’t go well, I could shrug it off like it wasn’t a big deal. And hey, if I did things with a ‘whatever’ attitude, I had an excuse ready for my lackluster