Who Am I? How Did I Get Here?
And Why You Should Hire Me?

I wasn't always an Engineer.

I actually took quite a non traditional path to become an Engineer. But on that long, windy, traditional path that had many speed bumps and roadblocks, I learned many valueable things along the way.

The Early Hustle

I have worked so many jobs before college, during college and after college before finding my way to John Deere. And in most of those jobs, I found a way to work my way up the chain and get out of the starting level posiiton, getting promoted, in pretty quick time.

The John Deere Chapter

When I came to John Deere 7 years ago, I came in as a Mechanical Engineer eager to learn and eager to soak in as much information as possible from all of the brilliant people around me. I was impressed with how sharp everyone was, and how steep I felt like the competition was. I felt like everyone was operating at such a high level, compared to other places I had worked, comparitively.

Within the first 2 years, I was promoted. 5 years later, and 3 more promotions brings me to today.

Why I'm Telling You This (Not Bragging)

Now I realize this may seem like boasting and bragging, I assure you that is not what is going on here. First of all, I have to say, I owe a huge thanks and debt of gratitute to the amazing mentors I have been lucky enough to have in my life in general, but even more so to my mentors I have met and established relationships with at John Deere. Without them, none of this would have been possibe. If it did, it would have taken at least double the time, I am sure of that.

So I do not highlight all of these promotions throughout my work history to boast or to claim some sort of natural genius. I say this to give you confidence that I have a system, a series of principles and practices, that if used, can result in career advancement faster than the average person.

The Missing Puzzle Piece

I realized pretty early in my time at Deere and other employers that there are brilliant people everywhere. I have had the pleasure and fortune to work alongside people far brighter and far more impressive than me when it comes to sheer brain power, intelligence, or whatever you want to call it.

But a lot of those same people have a difficult time putting together the puzzle pieces of strategy to have their brilliance and their hard work go noticed, have impact in the right way, and leveraged to help them advance their career at the speed they might like.

The "Ladder Climber" Myth

Now, I know what you're thinking, "this guy is a just a ladder climber, someone who just focused on getting promotions above all else, and did shotty work in every role, just doing enough to impress the right people to get that next promotion."

This couldn't be further from the truth. Although faster corporate ladder climbers can get this bad label and this cliché stigma, it's not always true. You see there are two types of people in a corporate environment:

• Those that want to go deep and build vertical mastery in an organization.
• Those that want to go wide, and build horizontal mastery in an organization.

A lot of folks labeled "ladder climbers" just cannot stay engaged and get bored after being in a role for 2-3 years, or once they feel like they've gleaned 80% of what that role has to offer. They can't help it, it's how they are wired. You wouldn't want someone on your team who is bored and checked out would you?

And companies benefit from having both. You need folks in an organization that can go very deep, gain and maintain deep technical mastery in a domain. And you need folks who can go wide, folks who like to have a large breadth of knowledge so that they can take great ideas and move them around to other parts of the organization, as well as warn people in area A that this idea has been tried and failed in area B. The company benefits greatly from having people who prioritize deep vertical knowledge, as well as those who move around and cross pollinate other parts of the organization with their wide horizontal breadth of knowledge.

Don't Feel Guilty About Wanting More

The last point I will make is this. Don't make people make you feel bad because you want a promotion. Wanting a promotion or wanting to land that dream job doesn't make you greedy, it doesn't make you trivial, it doesn't make you vain, it doesn't make you two faced or ill intentioned.

"A promotion is a recognition and a reward for your hard work and the VALUE that you have added to whatever organization you are in."

If you get a promotion, chances are you deserved it. Chances are, in most companies, other candidates were considered, and in most cases, other candidates applied, were interviewed, and put their hat in the ring as well. And you won. You came out on top. This isn't something to shun or feel guilty about. It is something that is okay to strive for and hope to achieve.

How I Can Help You

This is where I am ready, capable, and willing to help you. I have been promoted in nearly every environment I have worked in. And that didn't come about through some deceptive, scheming practices that were dishoenst, inauthentic, and manipulative. The principles and concepts I will teach you and work with you to enact in your career are ones of hard work, integrity, honesty, and dedication.

I don't have some snake oil or some magic pill secret to give you. I won't tell you, "just say these words" or "do this one action" and you will get your dream promotion in 12 months. No. I am offering you a framework, a set of principles and practices that will help you to approach this with the right strategy.

You will stil have to do a lot of hard work. This isn't some shortcut that requires no effort. But it is directing your hard work and effort in the right direction, with the right aim, and the right target. I learned early on in life that "just putting your head down and grinding it out" won't get you promoted like you think it will. Doing the hard work is the pre-requisite. Doing a great job is what you need to do to even have a seat at the table. But the other half of that is strategic and how you manuever relationships and interfaces with other people at work, your peers, your superiors, and your suboordinates.

I am not selling you a magic pill or some magic beans. I am selling you the opportunity to have me walk with you, and share my experience, and share my knowledge and my methods that helped get me promoted and recognized for my work time and time again, in many different organizations, different environments, different levels of my career and in different domains.

- Mansour