Through Profit and Loss with Scott Egbert (1/2)

Welcome to episode 227 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Scott Egbert, detailing his career shift from engineering to finance, the difference between accounting and finance, the role of business school, a career progression goal of being a business unit CFO, and how we can better communicate with finance. Original Recording Date: 03-13-2023 Topics – Meet Scott Egbert, An Interest in Finance, Changing Everything at Once, Balance Your Ambition, An Executive Goal, Think Like an Owner, Career as a Profit and Loss Statement, Understanding and Communicating with Finance Mentioned in the intro A special thanks to Leanne Elliott of the Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture Podcast for connecting us with Scott. The podcast is hosted by a business psychologist and a business owner, and they have excellent guests and discussions. We highly recommend checking out their show! 4:21 – Meet Scott Egbert Scott Egbert is a leadership coach focusing on career development and transition. Scott helps people who are dissatisfied with their career find joy, and there are a number of examples of this we can discuss. According to LinkedIn, Scott began years ago by studying aerospace engineering. When Scott was in high school he wanted to be a fighter pilot, but he had glasses. At the time you needed 20/20 vision to be a fighter pilot. Scott tells us today he gets a little motion sick riding the teacups at Disneyland and feels like being a pilot would have never worked out. There was really no backup plan, so Scott needed help from a high school guidance counselor. Because he was good at math and science the counselor encouraged him to pursue engineering. Scott never questioned this suggestion. With an interest in aviation and an interest in space from a young age Scott thought aerospace engineering was the way to go. Though he would not be able to be a pilot, this would allow Scott to participate in this field in some other way. 6:13 – An Interest in Finance After studying aerospace engineering and being an engineer for about 4 years, Scott eventually chose to get a MBA. Scott tells us he tends to get bored easily and after some experience as an engineer, he found the scope was very narrow. After speaking with peers at other companies who confirmed the narrow scope, he found some of his peers really loved that aspect. Scott, on the other hand, was looking for more variety in his work. Scott was working for an electric utility company, and they were looking to acquire a few power plants. As an engineer Scott was pulled into the process to look at the specs of some of the plants. Scott found this process of acquiring other companies quite fascinating, and he started asking a number of questions. Others who could tell he was very interested in these types of scenarios encouraged him to go to business school so he could work on these types of things more frequently. Scott went to business school over a 4-year period to get a MBA while he was working full time. He tells us he i