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Ep. 21 - Building Optionality in Your 20’s pt. 1 (Depth)
17 Plays16 days ago
In this episode, Ken Freire and Patrick Lowndes unpack the idea of building optionality in your 20s by going deep before going wide. They confront the lie that early career success should come quickly in the form of high pay, titles, or leadership, and instead reframe the season of your 20s as one of formation, skill-building, and trust. Through biblical examples and practical workplace wisdom, they show how depth, mastery, and patience create far more freedom and opportunity over the long run.
Resources Mentioned
- Clarity of Calling Assessment – https://www.frontieroperators.com/calling
Timestamps
- 0:00–1:15 – Introduction and why optionality in your 20s matters
- 1:16–2:40 – The core lie: early success means money, titles, and leadership
- 2:41–6:45 – Five problems this lie creates (false timelines, shallow skills, dissatisfaction, premature leadership, career drift)
- 6:46–8:30 – Why depth creates more optionality than job hopping
- 8:31–9:45 – Biblical examples of long formation (Jesus, Moses, David, Paul)
- 9:46–14:25 – Five practical ways to pursue depth first (mastery, compounding, trust, killing the 12‑month timeline, letting mastery create range)
- 14:26–end – Closing encouragement: go deep now so you can go wide later
Recommended
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to 'Buried Talent' Podcast
00:00:08
Ken Freire
Welcome to Buried Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are.
Theme of Building Optionality in Your 20s
00:00:17
Ken Freire
I'm Ken Freire, and today am back with my co-host, Patrick Lowndes, and we're talking about building optionality in your 20s.
00:00:26
Ken Freire
Patrick, man, we're finally back together after the holidays, recording, co-hosting, championing the Buried Talent podcast once
Patrick's Holiday Reflections and Episode Excitement
00:00:34
Ken Freire
again. are you doing, man?
00:00:37
Patrick
It's good to be back with you. I know we're almost a whole month into this, but yeah, it's so fun to be back and had a good time with the family, did some conferences as well
Understanding Marketplace Calling and Career Direction
00:00:47
Patrick
over the break.
00:00:48
Patrick
So kind of like not really that much of a break in some ways, but overall just energized, energized for the narrative here we get to tell and just the people get to inspire. So I'm really pumped about today's topic.
00:00:58
Ken Freire
Yeah. Yeah. And it's a topic that I think as you and I were just talking about it before the show, we're like, this is something people need. And it's really, really important for them to be like, how do you actually understand the longer range direction of your marketplace calling?
00:01:16
Ken Freire
So just kind of walk us through what you're thinking and how we're going walk through the conversation today.
Challenging Career Success Misconceptions
00:01:21
Patrick
Yeah. Well, again, every episode we try to hit on the core lie. What is the lie that we see young professionals, even more mid-career professionals experiencing? And especially the first, let's say, three to five years your career, there's this lie that says, well, if I'm doing well, I should be making $100,000 or more and probably leading people.
00:01:40
Patrick
Some people audaciously would say like within a year or two, right?
00:01:44
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:01:44
Patrick
Like I'm just leadership material. It's going to happen. And that, and there's one side of that, which is like, okay, cool. Thanks for your optimism. Maybe you do have some examples where you've been an effective leader in the past and that can happen. It's not like it can happen, but the lie is I should, it is the should be doing this, should be doing that.
00:02:02
Patrick
And I think just in general, if you're in your twenties, that's kind of just setting you up for disappointment. So we're going to hit out, hit on that lie today.
Salary Expectations vs. Market Realities
00:02:11
Ken Freire
Yeah. And to be clear, too, there are some roles that you may make 100K, but there's a lot of entry level roles that most people coming out of college are not going to make 100K.
00:02:22
Ken Freire
And there's a difference between what you may need because you're trying to live and stuff and like have a lavish lifestyle versus like, What is the marketplace offering you for your skill sets?
00:02:34
Ken Freire
And there's a gap there that we're going to talk about and figure out how to fill that gap at some point.
00:02:34
Patrick
Yeah.
00:02:39
Patrick
Yep.
00:02:39
Ken Freire
But today, it's really like, how do we actually walk through lie?
00:02:44
Patrick
Yep. And specifically, like we assume that you have already probably taken our clarity of calling assessment. You probably thought more deeply about God, where do you want me? How do you want to use me more long range? And so this first part about building optionality,
00:02:59
Patrick
is going to be focused on today's topic of going deep. How can get my depth first? And then next, part two of this little two-part series, we're going to unpack how do you build your breadth in your optionality. this first one, like if you skip this episode and just go straight to the next one, like you're just going to miss out on
Rethinking Career Timelines
00:03:18
Patrick
a bunch of stuff. So we're going to just lean into those real issues that the lie creates. So again, you want to kick us off with some of the first couple of issues?
00:03:27
Ken Freire
Yeah, the first couple of issues with what this life creates is one, false timelines, right? You expect outcomes before formation. The reality is that when you jump into a new setting, the goal of it is like it's forming your character. It's forming your ability. You're growing a new skill set.
00:03:45
Ken Freire
And you can't measure that just simply by saying, oh, well, here's the outcome. I should be here already. There's a lot of stuff that needs to happen within your life first.
Dealing with Career Expectation Dissatisfaction
00:03:53
Patrick
Yeah, and specifically skills, that's number two, shadow skill development.
00:03:56
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:03:57
Patrick
Like you're optimizing for what job title or how can I get my pay to a certain spot before you've achieved any level of mastery, right? Which is why we talk about depth and becoming like a student of your craft.
00:04:10
Patrick
Like, do you see it as a craft, right? Or is it just a obligatory stepping stone on the path? So we're going hit on some of that and some positive examples of how to build optionality.
00:04:21
Patrick
But give us number three, KC.
00:04:23
Ken Freire
Yeah. Number three is just chronic dissatisfaction. If you think you're supposed to be at a certain stage and you're not, right? The proverb talks about this, like a longing fulfilled is a tree life, but like a heart or a man, I just botched it. heart,
00:04:37
Ken Freire
What is it? I can't remember now. But basically saying like, you know, when your desires are not met, it's just like, gosh, it's dry to bones or sad, but a longing.
00:04:44
Patrick
Yeah. Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
00:04:47
Patrick
Is that it?
00:04:47
Ken Freire
There you go.
00:04:48
Ken Freire
Hope deferred. Yes. Hope makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
00:04:49
Patrick
There you go.
00:04:52
Patrick
There we go.
00:04:53
Patrick
Yeah, that's right.
00:04:55
Ken Freire
That's exactly what happens here. Chronic
Leadership Desires and Earning Through Mastery
00:04:56
Ken Freire
dissatisfaction. And you have to make sure that you realize that every role feels is going to be temporary, but it cannot be beneath you.
00:05:06
Ken Freire
It's a step into the next step.
00:05:06
Patrick
That's right.
00:05:08
Patrick
Yep. And we'll give some examples about this a little bit later on about mastery. But let's go to the fourth one is premature leadership desire, right? You just, you want to have that title, you to have that influence, right? And you want to, you want to be able to say, I look what I can do. And like, can we just do like a pride check for a second? Like, where does that come from? Is it like, I just want to lay myself down and serve everyone really well in a form, but like as their manager, right?
00:05:33
Patrick
Nine times out of 10, it's like, no, I freaking want to get that title. And I just want to put that on my LinkedIn and show people, look at how fast. And it's like, check your heart. Especially, we're speaking to Christians here. Jesus says, yeah, you want to lead? Yeah, jump in the backseat and shovel poop, basically. Get in the worst roles. Do the hard work. And the leader is the one actually washing feet, not the one updating their LinkedIn title.
Developing Mastery for Career Options
00:05:58
Ken Freire
Yeah, which leads to, I think, career drift, which is the fifth one that this lie creates is that if you are not...
00:05:59
Patrick
Anyway.
00:06:07
Ken Freire
doing the thing you feel called to do or you're not getting a title or the money, you're like, well, I guess I need to find another job. And job hopping feels wise. There is time that job hopping is good, but most of the time, and especially the younger generation, they hop every, you know, now I think it was two to three years. Now it's like 18 months. You're hopping. And the reality is that like there's actually some skills and development you need if you just stick with something long enough.
00:06:35
Patrick
Yeah, yeah. So this is why this whole first part about optionality is talking about depth because the deeper you go in mastering your job number one, the deeper you go creates more optionality.
00:06:49
Patrick
Because people see this person is already not just barely competent, but this person is exceedingly competent at one thing. And it's the exceedingly competent people that leaders want to look to give more and expand their skill set use them in different ways.
Biblical Examples of Patience and Leadership Formation
00:07:06
Patrick
Ken, can you just give us real quick, four examples in the Bible as four, cause we already came up with these, but what are some examples of people taking some time to form just so people know they're in good company.
00:07:16
Patrick
Like they're not all by themselves here. When we say like, Hey, like pause a little bit, get some, get depth. Who are some examples?
00:07:22
Ken Freire
Yeah. Well, I think the first one I think of, obviously, is Jesus. Before he jumped into ministry, he had spent 30 years. You know, so that's huge right there. The second one is Moses. He spent 40 years in the wilderness.
00:07:35
Ken Freire
Think about it. He was a prince of Egypt. Then he kills someone and then he's in the wilderness before God uses him for freeing the people of Israel. Another one is King David. King David, he was anointed king when he was a teenager. And it was like 17 years later before he becomes king.
00:07:52
Ken Freire
Right. Imagine someone tells you you're going become king.
00:07:52
Patrick
Wow.
00:07:54
Ken Freire
You think it's going to like six months from now.
00:07:56
Patrick
Yeah.
00:07:57
Ken Freire
17 years, right? Like, it's a lot. And then Paul, the apostle, right?
00:08:01
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:03
Ken Freire
Years of obscurity after his conversion that there were like 14 years where if I remember, he was in Galatia, like preparing, he was still doing ministry, but there was a lot of different things that he was doing in preparation, that sometimes we think, oh, this just happened so quickly.
Five Actionable Career Depth Steps Introduction
00:08:17
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:18
Ken Freire
No, there was time being built.
00:08:21
Patrick
Yep. So we want to, I mean, just you're in good company, right? Get some formation first. And so you're like, that sounds good at a high level, Patrick. Shoot it straight to me. I'm almost done with my drive, my workout, my lunch. Like give me five ways to make this stick.
00:08:35
Patrick
And we're going to deliver on that promise for you as we always do.
00:08:36
Ken Freire
Yeah, let's do it.
00:08:39
Patrick
Right, Ken? So Ken, give us a first skill and we'll just ping pong on these five skills to pursue depth first in your
00:08:46
Ken Freire
Yep, so the first one is choose one core skill to master. So this is like pick the center of gravity of your role. Like I am going to master whatever it is, whether it's sales. If you're in a sales role, that means learn how to persuasion or pipeline ownership, right? Whatever it takes, skill set you need to just become a master at your craft. It might be engineering.
00:09:07
Ken Freire
It might be ops. Just think about if I were to be excellent at one thing here, what would it be? So that people could see you be like, wow, I want to be just like that.
00:09:19
Patrick
That's right. Number two, commit to staying long enough for compounding. A lot of people, in their mind, their mental model is like, oh, I'm going to be here for like a year, maybe year and a half, and then I'm going to do something. met a guy, just started a job, and he's like, yeah, I'm going to try to be here four years because that's At that point, yeah, there's some stock options and things like that, but he took this longer range to like, I want to let my skill set compound. So you got to think a little bit broader and then what that will do is create better optionality because you're not going to be always looking over your shoulder. You're going to be focused on one role and the best time to be searching for your next role is when you're happy and high performing in your current one. Right? It's the best time to be looking for a job if you ever felt like, hey, maybe this first job is not the right one. that's number two, commit to staying long enough for compounding.
00:10:07
Ken Freire
Yep. Which then leads to number three, measure progress by trust, not titles. And this is going to feel counterintuitive, but this is kind of going back to what Patrick was saying, like leaders in a biblical sense, sense is all about serving, not being served.
00:10:13
Patrick
Hmm.
00:10:23
Ken Freire
Right. So questions you got to ask yourself is like, do leaders rely on me? Do teammates come to me? Like when you measure progress by how much trust you have, all of sudden you realize I'm an expert in the field. I'm actually capable of doing what God's called me to do. And I've mastered this thing.
00:10:40
Ken Freire
This is where real promotion starts to happen. When you want, if you really want a promotion, don't politics, right?
00:10:43
Patrick
Yeah.
00:10:47
Ken Freire
Don't try to like persuade and always try to like have these conversations. Like can people actually trust you when things get hard?
00:10:55
Patrick
Yeah. I'm gonna give you a real example. I was eating dinner with a friend and we were out there with our families talking and he's a really, really senior like architect level like software guy at Nvidia actually.
00:11:08
Patrick
So like, you know, massive company, right?
00:11:10
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:11:11
Patrick
And I said, hey, what's the difference between like a true like junior developer and like somebody who's like senior, who's like ready to get promoted, be a team lead, all that kind of stuff. And he says, oh, well, the most obvious one, which goes back to this like, you know, building trust is like a junior level person is picky about what projects and work they work on.
00:11:30
Patrick
A senior level person just like, I don't care what it is. Just give it to me. I want to figure it out. I want to be about solving the problem and the team. even if it's something that everyone else kind of begrudges. Right. And usually like in an engineering sense, it's like, you're not working on the shiny new feature. You're like figuring out why things are broken. Right. And it's not as fun, but he's like, oh yeah, someone that's willing to take on anything. It's how you build trust. Right. Like put me in coach. Like, let me get in there and solve something for you.
00:11:57
Patrick
Everybody wants that kind of person and it builds trust where the promotion
Commitment to Growth and Mastery
00:12:01
Patrick
happens. Okay. Number four, Kill the 12-month fantasy timeline. I like this. So again, if leadership is earned through building trust and repeated actions building trust, you might be thinking, don't know if you've listened to bloggers or people talking about trying to angle for career promotions or whatever their performance review timeline is. There certainly is a real thing about making sure your value is known before a certain performance review.
00:12:25
Patrick
But hey, within 12 months, you're probably landing at some awkward time in that performance window anyway. So just do yourself a favor and make that 24 months, right? Just throw it out there and say, hey, I got to get past my first one. It's really probably my second review after they've seen me operate for a year and then some. that I actually can demonstrate more of what I'm capable of. And so I would just try to alleviate that 12-month fantasy timeline by just doubling that, I would say. That's number four.
Emphasizing Skill Deepening for Career Optionality
00:12:56
Ken Freire
Yeah, and then the last one is number five, let mastery create range. And again, this might feel counterintuitive, but what we're talking about that when you go deeper, the deeper you become an expert, then you start to realize what are the actual other skill sets you need.
00:13:11
Ken Freire
And that's the goal here.
00:13:13
Patrick
Yep, exactly. Yeah, when you find out that you're really good at one thing, usually these tangential or adjacent things become more interesting. You're like, oh, every time I talk with, you're technical person, every time I talk with that product or product marketing person, always just come alive, like pay attention to where you're coming alive And we're going talk a lot about that on part two. But that, I mean, Ken, that is our quick, like the first part of building optionality is you need to drive depth first. And then later we'll get to this other part about looking at all the options. But man, if you're not crushing it where you're at, like you're just distracted, right?
00:13:51
Ken Freire
Absolutely. And that's where the goal is go deeper and then you can go wider.
00:13:56
Patrick
Awesome.