A change in mindset landed Tyler his dream job
One day late in 2020, Tyler Morten, brand experience director at Twitch, reflected on how his truly life changing journey started.
“I was at a breaking point. I recognized the pattern. Every two years I was looking for a new job,” he said.
He felt as if he had tried everything, but he knew he needed to try something different this time. He needed to muster the energy to find change in a new way.
That’s when he reached out to me, Daniela Bryan, Chief Vision Officer of DBCoach and longtime executive coach. Even though career wise he had worked on cool things, he recognized that he had derived no pleasure from any of it.
Tyler had worked on executing retail strategies and experiential design for adidas global, worked as art director for GoPro, was design lead at Nike Snowboarding, and worked as graphic designer on brands such as Electronic Arts, Incase and Xbox. Now he was responsible for building strategy as to how the brand Twitch manifests in physical form. It all sounded great, but Tyler was pretty miserable. He and his expectant wife had recently moved from Oakland, California, back to Salt Lake City, Utah, where they loved the mountains and where they had more space during the Coronavirus shutdowns.
A professional snowboarder before, Tyler loved the camaraderie that came with a group of guys up on the mountain, but now in his job, he was a group of one! He was a natural creative spirit, yet found himself solving data-driven problems at Twitch, an Amazon subsidiary. And on top of that, a series of injuries from snowboarding left him physically depleted.
He felt flat. Uninspired. Close to burnout. He knew he needed to change something.
Tyler didn’t know what to expect from the coaching experience, but the first month was eye opening for him. Just because he wanted to embrace the coaching process didn’t mean he would. So he definitely stayed up late a few nights before the next meeting. He was paying for coaching, so why not do the work? He resisted the ‘homework’ but unlike when he was in school, this ‘homework’ benefitted him directly and immediately. So he stuck with it.
He considers himself a notorious procrastinator and he was wondering what I would think of him when he sent the assignments at 10 p.m. the night before the coaching session. (It didn’t matter to me at all.) But he found it rewarding to learn why he was so unhappy in his work.
It was time to gain some clarity and find the intersection of his needs, who he is at the core, and what his unique skills are.
During the first month I gave him a number of assessments to help me get to know him better and to help him gain some clarity as to his strengths, desires, passions and what might possibly be standing in his way. We started with him texting me every day to report that he had completed his physical therapy exercises. Accountability is key. Slowly he regained some physical strength and the self-confidence that he could stick with a task consistently and not give into procrastination.
Next came a deep dive into what Tyler’s values are. It was illuminating for him to recognize when in his life he had honored his values and when he hadn’t and how honoring his values had made such a difference in his feeling fulfilled. He was obviously off-track and it was time to look for something more aligned with who he actually is.
We identified what he needed most to succeed. And realizing that he wasn’t getting that at work reinforced that he was right seeking change. Everything became clearer.
Next, I had him write a 10-year letter; he dated it January 13, 2031. This was even more clarifying. He saw how he could have fun, uplift others through his experience, create and build something from scratch that is meaningful to him, and be connected.
“Knowing what I want has given me the confidence in how to shape the conversation,” Tyler said.
Up to that point I had challenged Tyler to step up and do the work. Now he took it upon himself. He was fired up because now he knew what he wanted and went all in. He identified who he wanted to work for and started engaging with people on LinkedIn at those companies. He learned about their brands and identified what needs they had to grow and develop, just like he had done for himself. He applied what he learned which was truly life changing.
Truly life changing
In the process he engaged with his potential new employer and persuaded them to give his plan a try, even hire him remotely, their first ever creative hire. He manifested his dream opportunity: He is now working as a creative director for Vermont SportsCar, where he found the camaraderie he was seeking and the opportunity to let his creativity unfold.
He says his physical well-being has improved by 50 percent since the start of coaching. Last time I spoke with him he sounded like a kid in a candy store. Which feels just right, as he is about to welcome his firstborn into the world.