The Next Step

An Amputee Taking His Hardest Step Yet

Up until August of 2025, I worked for the same company my entire career. Now, a lot of people, I’m sure, have similar experiences. However, for me, this was the first real job I had after college. It was the first real paycheck I received, and the first real W2 I struggled to figure out how to file. It was the place I got my first performance review and made my first sale ever. It was the place where I had my first awkward co-worker interactions, and the first company that celebrated my birthday. It was a place of many, many firsts, and getting let go from that company was another first for me.

For the past 10 years, I always had the same work-home, and I always knew where my paycheck would be coming from. I was lucky to move up a couple of times in those 10 years. I worked hard to get myself off the sales floor and into a corporate role.

As an amputee, not being on my feet all day on a sales floor was a welcome change. I also learned that an office job, compared to something customer-facing, has a different level of motivation.

Office work always means smaller tasks over weeks, months, and even years that build up into a result. That result could also be completely different from what you started years before.

In my experience, sales is all about the big wins. It’s those shock-to-your-system moments of intense work that end when you walk off the sales floor.

In an office, you’re building up small wins, so over time, you’ve amassed a few big wins. In the end, they both even out to the same level of effort. However, hitting a big sale always felt bigger in the moment, but getting a couple of office wins a week feels almost as good too, trust me.

Looking back on the last 10 years, I’m so proud of the work I’ve done and the growth I’ve had. I know change is good, but no one ever said change was easy. So now, as I find my next job not at that company for the first time in my adult career, I feel more optimistic than anything. I am, for better or worse, an eternal optimist after all. I do believe jobs come and go just like fads in pop culture, but those relationships you make along the way are what make it all worth it.

As I take my next step, I’m trying to take motivation from the kid 10 years ago who figured out how to get a job while learning to walk again and who started that job with so much hope and ambition. It’s not every day that you stumble into something that lasts you 10 years.

While I’m motivated and primed to take my next step, I’ll never forget all the ones I took along the way. As an amputee who counts every step he takes, it’s been quite a journey.