"Please don't put your life in the hands Of a rock and roll band" - Don't Look Back in Anger, Oasis
A legitimate question to ask if you’ve never heard of the founders of this program. Why should you, indeed, put your problems in the hands of the two of us? Trust us, this is a question we asked ourselves many times as we were designing Unstuck. We have six reasons.
1. We've taken the journey from stuck -> unstuck in personal and professional lives ourselves.
Chuck managed to make two career pivots work: from a career he wasn't enjoying anymore to a completely different field; and then from formal employment to working for himself. Read more about those here.
Utsav was stuck with respect to health - think being overweight, having chronic back pain, elevated blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels, something he solved with building systems and leaning on external accountability.
We both know what it's like being stuck, the questions one carries, and the steps needed to get out of there.
2. We largely live life on our own terms
Chuck made his freelance pivot work. He works with who he wants, when he wants. Heck, a few years this helped him relocate out of a crowded metro so now he even works where he wants! Utsav switched from running a P&L to being an individual contributor in his full time job, opening up both time and mental bandwidth.
Importantly, both of us can devote time to creative pursuits, learning, hobbies and of course, running The 6% Club and building Unstuck. Both of us are in the most clear state of mind we've ever been. And dare we say, we're good at extracting what's worked for us, into frameworks to help others.
3. Utsav's certified to run a structured career assessment
If you're looking for a formal 'qualification', we have that too! Utsav has been certified by the Myers-Briggs company (a world leader in personality assessments) to facilitate the Strong Interest Inventory® assessment. It's a standardised career interest assessment that measures what types of work, activities, and environments one is drawn to and links those interests to compatible careers and leisure activities.
4. We've helped many people get Unstuck before
… If not as structured as what we offer in this program.
Chuck has done formal career consulting sessions for close to 50 individuals since 2019 - especially on transitioning to freelance or making career pivots in the creative industry. Virtually, our content has helped many people find direction - you only need to look at the comments section of this post Utsav wrote on living an intellectually rich life, or this one Chuck wrote on building a framework to live your 30s. Apart from these, we've run podcasts, conducted workshops, written articles... not to mention, informally counselled several friends (over beer), and college students (over coffee!).
5. We have ample experience running cohort-based courses
Many who have well-meaning advice or have tasted professional success struggle to translate it to those wanting to learn from them. With all due modesty, we can say we do not fall in that camp.
Chuck has run a successful digital marketing program called the NoFaff Sessions during the pandemic, delivering practical (and at times, entertaining) lessons to 300+ attendees over 4 cohorts. Both of us have taught (digital marketing, content, market research) at universities (some IIMs, FLAME, MICA, SIMC, Stoa, and more). We've both been part of a Spotify-IFP expert panel to mentor young podcasters.
Most importantly, we've mentored 300+ working professionals to find joy in a creative project, through The 6% Club, which also features masterclasses from some legendary creators.
In short - we know how to run a course for 2-3 months, keep a community engaged and involved, abstract our individual experiences to useful frameworks for attendees, and keep folks accountable.
Finally, we are still WIPs ourselves
We still have a long way to go ourselves. We spend a lot of time learning, reading, and implementing things in our own lives. For things personal, professional, fitness-wise, things an urban millennial thinks about, things that normally come with "mid life crisis", things a knowledge worker worries about in the age of AI... And we try to live our lives a little better, each day. We spend an inordinate amount of time discussing these things with each other (indeed, that's how the idea for Unstuck started). We extract lessons and frameworks from here, to make them useful to you. Think of us as peers who are a few steps ahead of you, and have validated our approach to Unstuck with professionals.
This is not some random cool copy that ChatGPT gave us for our site. This is how we've even run our other offering - The 6% Club, a creative projects coaching program (for example - Chuck has started making Reels, whose experience he filters back into the curriculum).
In a way, we look at this program from the lens of a practitioner, and we think it's always best to learn from a practitioner! We consider our lives the laboratory, whose findings benefit you.
All in all, we think for what we promise in this program, we’re well-placed to help you out. So even if you don’t put your full life in the hands of a rock and roll band like Noel and Liam implored; we assure you, that you can put the scaffolding for it in the hands of Chuck and Utsav :-)