Good afternoon. It's Rohan and I'm back with the latest edition of Coached — your personal mentorship email that takes a few minutes to read, but speeds up your career by years. |
We all face setbacks and make mistakes in our careers. In today's Mentor's Corner, I'm sharing a couple of mindset shifts that have helped me bounce back faster — and even grow from them. I think it'll be a useful read whether you're going through a tough time now or want a new perspective. |
Plus, if you're a mid- to senior-level job seeker, don't miss the resume advice at the bottom of the email. |
Estimated read time: 5 minutes 30 seconds |
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🌐 A post I thought you'd enjoy |
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Before we get into it, here's a short email writing tip I posted on LinkedIn this week — I feel so many get this wrong: |
 | Say "Can I pick your brain?" and watch a busy person run |
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If you're not following me on LinkedIn yet, I share bite-sized, candid career advice like this on there pretty regularly. People tell me it gives them an easy way to stay motivated and learn how to navigate their careers. |
Follow me there so you don't miss a key insight. |
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📈 Mentor's Corner Insights put together by me. One practical lesson a week that will make a measurable impact on your career, delivered right to you — for $0. |
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How to get over failure and setbacks |
The date is April 26th, 2003… |
And a young guy called Aron is hiking in Blue John Canyon, Utah. He grabs onto what he thinks is a stable boulder to cross a gap in the rockface. |
Big mistake. |
The boulder dislodges, causing Aron to plummet to the canyon below, with the boulder landing on top of his arm, trapping him. |
He's stuck, with no phone, and no one knows he's there. |
Over the next 4 days, Aron tries everything to get out, but nothing works. |
That's when it dawns on him… |
This might be the end. And he screams and cries in regret. |
Aron's story is extreme, but it got me thinking about the mistakes we make in our careers. |
Cos sooner or later, we all make them. Sometimes big ones that change the course of our lives. Maybe we take a job that's a bad fit. Or someone else gets promoted instead of us. Or we get fired. |
But…how do we deal with it? |
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Here are a few of my thoughts: |
| | | | …by the way, if you use LinkedIn, go to my profile and hit the 'Follow' button. I share a mix of practical career strategy and mid-week motivation — stuff that makes it easy to keep your career on track.
Topics coming up this week: how to make a great first impression, confidence hacks for introverts + more. See you there. | alright, let's get back to my essay… |
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🪨 "It's been waiting for me" |
Let's get back to Aron. After almost 5 days, he's cursing the rock. |
"I HATE THIS ROCK!!!!" he shouts, pounding his free arm off it. |
Stuck, he hallucinates and thinks about all the mistakes he's made. How he didn't spend time with family, or ruined personal relationships, and was too proud to be anything but a "lone wolf"... |
… which got him into this mess. |
And that's when he has an epiphany: |
"It's funny how things come together… It's me. I chose this. I chose all of this. This rock's been waiting for me my entire life… ever since it was a bit of meteorite a billion years ago in space. It's been waiting, to come here. Right, right here. |
I've been moving towards it my entire life. The minute I was born, every breath that I've taken, every action has been leading me to this crack on the Earth's surface." |
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As soon as Aron realizes the rock was "meant" for him… |
He finds a (rather grisly) way out! (Watch 127 Hours if you wanna know more). |
My point? |
What if your setback was just like Aron's rock? And it's been waiting for you your entire life to teach you something? |
What if, instead of a curse… |
🎁 … it's a gift? |
Say you lose your job. You've been there for four years, you've had a comfy salary, and you're understandably upset. |
Maybe the economy sucked and your employer let you go. Or you f'd up and were let go. |
It's normal to be totally upset. But imagine if you reframed it: |
"I've been stuck at the same job for the last 4 years. If I was here for another 5 years, would I have been fulfilled? …Probably not. Maybe this was the push I needed." |
I love this perspective. |
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⏳ Every setback has a lesson. How fast can you find it? |
Setbacks suck. But they're inevitable. |
And each one comes with a lesson. A clue for how to do better next time. |
Some people miss this. They replay stuff in their head forever, blame themselves, and never look for the learning. |
Maybe bombing that client pitch taught you the importance of preparation. Maybe missing that project deadline showed you need a better way to manage your time. |
The takeaway: Aim to cut down the time between a mistake happening and finding the lesson in it. |
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💡 How to find the lessons faster |
I know what I've said is easier said than done. When we make mistakes, our emotions often take over. If someone asked me, "What's the lesson here?" right after I screwed-up, I'd probably block their number! |
But here's a two-step process that can help: |
First, recognize that both rational and emotional sides to our brain. we have When things go wrong, emotions take the wheel. That's normal. But to find the lesson, we need to engage our rational side. |
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One trick is to ask yourself, "If this happened to a friend, what would I tell them?" It helps you remove yourself from the situation. |
Think about it: when a friend asks for advice, you're objective. They might say, "I messed up at work. Am I going to get fired? What do I do?". |
Because you're not emotionally involved, you can give clear-headed guidance — while your friend's emotionally involved and can't. |
So, next time you're in the thick of a setback, step back and imagine you're advising a friend. What would you tell them? How would you help them see the situation objectively? |
It's funny how much easier it is to think clearly when we step outside of ourselves. |
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That's a wrap for today. I hope this is an email you can come back to when you're facing a hard moment and need a small boost or a different perspective. |
These emails aren't easy to write each week and cost a lot in email sending costs. But I keep the whole thing free, without sleazy 'pay to read the rest of it!' type of stuff. So in return, here's the 'fee': |
If an email changes the way you think, opens your mind to a new perspective, or gives you an insight you get value from, do one of these: |
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Stuff like this helps and makes all the efforts feel worth it — thank you. |
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 | wait do people do this. i can totally see it working |
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 | tip: use PDF always! as long as you generate the PDF through word/google docs (and not through something like Canva), it'll be perfectly readable by resume screeners |
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🔎 Speed Up Your Job Search One actionable piece of advice to help you hack your job search. |
How to show leadership skills on your resume |
Read the full article here. |
🧐 Especially if you're applying for mid- to senior-level roles or ones that involve managing others, hiring managers will want to see evidence of leadership or management skills on your resume. |
❌ You can't just say things like "I have strong management and leadership skills" and expect hiring managers to believe you — using subjective buzzwords on your resume is a common mistake people make. |
✅ Instead, you want to show evidence of leadership through your experience — for example, you might write about when you led an important project or trained others in your team: |
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🎯 You should use a tool like Score My Resume to find out if your resume shows enough leadership experience. One of the components of your resume's score is leadership (among 20+ other recruiter checks), so it's a great litmus test to see if you've checked this box. Try it. |
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What'd you think of today's edition? |
👍 I loved it. |
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Here are some reviews of last week's email. Leave one here. |
 | that's the goal :) to be everyone's personal career coach |
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 | thank you :) |
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 | welcome new reader! |
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If you're new here, hi! |
Hey, I'm Rohan. Some people are into yoga, others are into fishing - me, I'm all about self-improvement. Years ago, I got fed up with the fluff that passes for career advice out there. So, I started Resume Worded and this email series, Coached, to share the industry insider info I was learning. |
Think of this email as your weekly dose of career coaching you didn't know you needed. No fluff, no platitudes, no-BS — just real stuff that you need to hear to shape your career into what you want it to be. |
Until next time, |
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Rohan
Founder at Coached & Resume Worded |
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P. S. To make sure your career never goes off the rails, don't miss my future emails. A simple way to make sure you get each email is: |
If you're using Gmail, hit the 3 dots at the top-right corner, and choose Move to -> Primary. Or drag this email to Primary if you're on your computer. If you're using Apple Mail, tap on our email address at the top of this email (next to "From:" on mobile) and click "Add to VIPs.".
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