Dying in the Wilderness: Finding Purpose Through Failure

By Chad Michael Kanyer

Since he was young, Chad wanted to be an entrepreneur, but college debt, delays, and doubts prevented him from “taking the leap.”

Seven years later, despite being a new husband and father, and living in a new city, he felt it was time to cast off the controls of his “cushy job” and leap into the exhilarating and edifying world of entrepreneurship, where he would finally have the freedom to create, connect, and find his unique purpose. While he did find purpose there, it was only by enduring and experiencing unimaginable lessons about himself, our culture, and God.

These are the lessons he learned in the wilderness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664248083

Chad Michael Kanyer

Chad grew up in the Seattle area but ventured east to attend Carnegie Mellon University (B.S., Business) which led to a career in Fortune 500 Technology Management and a secondary degree (University of Virginia, M.S., IT Management). Pulling from his own scars and successes in career and life, Chad equips and encourages people to find their unique purpose. He does so through books, speaking engagements, and his podcast, the Saddled Stallion. Chad lives in Virginia with his sassy wife and their three crazy, hilarious kids. He enjoys family hikes, football, and his wife’s paleo desserts.

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Copyright © 2021 Chad Michael Kanyer.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-4809-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4810-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4808-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021921693

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/15/2022

For Daniella. We made it through.

Contents

Foreword

Sometime during July 2014, I made my way down to the lobby of our hotel around 5:30am. Half-asleep, I mumbled some version of good morning to Chad and we made our way to his rental car. Our destination was the 6am class at CrossFit Heat in downtown Dallas. We’d race back to the hotel afterwards, shower as quickly as possible, and show up to the client’s office (still sweating) as close to 7:45am as possible (anything after 8am was considered late).

Chad and I repeated this routine Monday through Thursday every week for about a year while working together in the unrelenting world of Big Four consulting. The client account was large and I had been there for a few months before starting on a project with Chad. Chad was about three years my senior and I was set to report to him for the next year of my life.

Prior to meeting Chad, I had joined the workforce fresh out of college. On my first consulting project, my supervisor had made me run and send a report out at around 4am on Monday mornings before boarding my flight to Dallas because if I had done so around 9am when I landed, the report would be too late. Of course, I also couldn’t send it out Sunday night because the data wouldn’t be fresh. Needless to say, I hated that project and met Chad with no expectations that life would get better anytime soon.

To my surprise, Chad and I bonded quickly over having played college football and immediately things were looking up, but liking my superior hadn’t been my only issue to that point. Another issue was the fact that I was considered too junior to book a rental car; a handful of us would share one each week. We all flew in on Monday morning and three or four of us would pile into the rental car, with the most senior person holding the keys. Occasionally, cars were borrowed, but for the most-part, you were completely at the mercy of the key-holder and whatever they wanted to do before or after work.

My old supervisor wouldn’t let me take the car to the gym in the morning because heaven-forbid I would prevent us from leaving the hotel after 7:15am. What this ultimately meant is that I was stuck cramming workouts in the hotel gym (which was average at best). For most, this likely wouldn’t have been a big deal, but for me, it was huge. Even with suboptimal workout conditions aside, if you want to make someone miserable, take away a large portion of their freedom for 16+ hours of the day.

With that fact (and given that I didn’t hate him), I quickly began pitching Chad on the idea of me taking his rental car out in the early mornings so that I could attend local CrossFit workouts before my rest-of-day enslavement began. I was attempting to apply to Officer Candidate School for the Marines and CrossFit is as close to a military workout as a civilian can get. I told him that there was a 6am class and that I would be back by 7:15am and showered and ready by 7:30am, enabling us to get into the office by 7:45am.

Chad denied my request to take the car but did me one better; he would keep the keys but join me in class. Chad had never tried CrossFit before but wanted to get back into shape and saw my request as a catalyst for him to do so. His decision was a major win for me! Not only had I escaped the hotel gym, but now, if I was late to work, it wouldn’t just be my fault – it would also be my boss’ fault.

The work on that project was no more exciting than the last one and despite a few exceptions, no more exciting than any other project I’d do during my time with the firm. My life on that project, however, was better than it was on most. 8am-7pm was still miserable. Sure, I had friends in Investment Banking who worked worse hours, but it seemed like the work they did until 3am everyday actually provided value to whatever zillion dollar deal their evil genius boss was cooking up.

Every week, we did more and more work, had more and more meetings, and made more and more PowerPoint decks, excel reports, flowcharts, etc. It wasn’t a job where you sat around online shopping half the day. You were busy each one of those hours you were there but at the end of each day, week, and project, you’d always see the 80/20 rule come into play: 80% of what we did didn’t really matter or make a huge difference. We always got a lot done each week, but rarely did we actually accomplish anything.

Was this it? Was this life for the next 40 years? Chad was asking himself the same questions.

When you’re on the road all week, every week and working long hours, it is easy for you to become the job and the job