Graduate corporate life for entrepreneurial freedom — without jeopardizing your income or family 💚 | Pod: UncageYourself.FM 🎧

You make great money... and you're suffocating.



I coach Directors, VPs, and Executives through Corporate Graduation®: the transition from Corporate Dependent to Corporate Optional — in one year.



Whether you're still inside corporate or recently out, if you've spent 15-25 years building career capital, you're probably running some version of this:



1) Sunday nights feel heavier than they should.

2) You keep starting things and stopping.

3) Family and health get whatever's left.

4) You're going through the motions and no one can tell.

5) You've been doing the math in your head for months.



That was me.

Divorced. Burnt out. 

Going dark inside a career everyone envied.



So I got to work:



I made my employer my investor.

Compressed the job.

Built a founder-grade business.

Graduated corporate for good.



171+ Directors, VPs, and Executives have done the same.

The methodology: Space → Self → System.



1) SPACE: compresses corporate and clears the conditions.

2) SELF: recodes the identity underneath.

3) SYSTEM: deploys your career capital into a founder-grade business.



Skip a step, and you replicate the cage with a different name on the door.



What we do together:



✅ Compress your corporate role to 20 hours/week

✅ Package your career capital into proprietary IP

✅ Build a founder-grade business around who you are

✅ Install founder identity, not someday — now

✅ Exit with runway, not regret



Ex-BCG. 4x dad.



This is the work I was built for.



START HERE:

go.corporategraduation.com

Matt Doan

1 week of founder growth = 5 years of corporate growth.

Here's what just happened for me:

(Save this)

Last week, New Media Summit in Austin with 500+ builders. This week, a 3-day intensive mastermind with some of the most badass founders around the world.

Back to back. Intense. I'm drained.

→ In corporate, growth is slow. Incremental. Safe.
→ Same room, same conversations, same container.
→ You don't notice it b/c environment never changes.

One week in the right rooms reoriented how I think, build, and move. That compression becomes normal when you design your life around it.

If you're still inside corporate making great money but feeling the pull toward something more, these are the things nobody tells you about the other side.

5 things worth sitting with:

---

1) Your TOP job as a founder is content.

Not sales calls. Not funnels. Content.

Every hour on a great YouTube video, podcast, or Substack essay pays you back for months (or years). Builds trust with people you'll never meet... until they're ready to buy. 

100X ROI. Nothing in corporate compounds like this.


2) Nobody cares about you. Just their transformation.

I walked the booths at the summit. Companies winning had names like selfpublishing.com, The Scalable Company, and GrowLetter. Crystal clear outcomes. Zero "I help X do Y" language.

That's consultant energy. One-man band.

Category design means framing, naming, and claiming your own space. Shine the light on the category, not yourself (see Category Pirates).


3) Sales is hard when marketing is weak.
Marketing is weak when positioning sucks.

Every founder I met who struggled with sales had the same root cause two levels up.

Vague, safe, and generic positioning.

When positioning is sharp, marketing writes itself. When marketing works (which should be 80% of your days), sales becomes enrollment, not a pitch.


4) People don't haggle anymore. They binge and decide.

They want to experience your thinking through long-form content. YouTube, podcast, Substack. Non-negotiables, no matter your business type.

Buying decisions happen before anyone books a call.


5) When you see a window, throw a brick through it.

(Because windows close.)

Go pro. Not "I'll start when I'm ready."

The corporate →  founder shift means someone saw an opening and went all in. They know their audience intimately. They produce at volume. They treat content like a pro athlete treats training.

My positioning with Corporate Graduation® is locked down (legally, even). Category claimed. Now it's building a trust-building marketing machine — YouTube at the core, with podcast and Substack, all feeding one engine.

I'm going pro in marketing.

---

If you're reading this from inside corporate, leaning toward something more, you're not going to figure it out in your current room. Or at your current pace.

Change the room.
Build the machine.
Go pro.

PS - This is the message you needed to hear.

Corporate Graduation® Founder | Directors & VPs → Founder in ONE Year | 173 Graduates | Ex-BCG | go.corporategraduation.com

The Mindful Creator | I talk about mindset, creativity, & content writing | Building The Mindful Creation Blueprint

I wasn’t supposed to be here.

Five and a half years ago, my life was going the other way...

I was: 

🔹Drinking every day
🔹Running from myself

And one night alcohol took my right eye in a freak accident

That was my wake-up call.

I had two choices: 

1. Keep spiraling downwards (and potentially die) 
2. Rebuild myself

I chose to rebuild.

I got sober. 

Which forced me to face the sides of myself I’d been running from. 

And in the process, I discovered something most people never realize...

Your identity shapes your whole reality. 

Who you believe you are determines what you're capable of creating. 

That lesson became the foundation of everything I do now.

When I started my consulting business...

I was in college studying audio engineering.

Just a normal guy who had to figure it out from scratch.

Since then... 

I built my consulting business to six figures organically on LinkedIn.

And I've watched my clients break through the same walls I had broken through in my own life.

Today, my mission is simple:

To help established leaders and creatives get to $20K/m by doing the inner work combined with the business work.

Because I know what it feels like to lose everything.

And I also know what it takes to build yourself back stronger.

Darion Rae

I hit my first $5K month with less than 5K followers. 

I also went on to hit my first $10K month with less than 7K followers. 

Proving to me once again the dirty little secret most LinkedIn gurus don’t want you to know (because you’d stop liking and commenting on their posts so much)

→ You want your dream clients to respect you more than they like you. 

You’ll grow slower.

You definitely won’t be ‘LinkedIn famous’.

But you’ll actually make money here.

--

🔷 I created a training breaking down my LinkedIn Acquisition Triangle that I’ve used for me and my clients to generate almost half a million on LinkedIn.

It’s inside my free Skool community, Identity & Income Breakers. You can join here: https://lnkd.in/dNFDt2yC

60+ 1:1 Clients Served | Helping solopreneurs build 6-figure service businesses on LinkedIn

Get yourself a win today.

The reason you feel stuck is because you’re not making progress.

It doesn’t have to be a huge win either.

Even a simple:

🔹Email sent
🔹DM or follow up
🔹Video script draft

Can be enough momentum to get the ball rolling for you again. 

Never forget…

Progress = meaning.

My first 2 years on LinkedIn I did a lot of cold outreach.

Now I do 0.

Here’s why…

First, I want to say, cold outreach did land me a few clients.

It did lead to actual revenue.

I’m not saying it doesn’t work at scale. 

But doing it also…

🔹Hurt my authority
🔹Had a VERY low return on time
🔹Raised people’s skepticism from the beginning

Even when I wasn’t connecting and pitching and actually personalizing my approach. 

Here’s why (and the BIG problem with cold outreach)…

The positioning is all wrong. 

When you’re chasing instead of attracting it gives the impression you’re not in demand. 

It shows a sense of neediness and that your program or service can’t be that good.

Especially if you’re having to pitch people who barely know you about it. 

I know you might be thinking “Cool Darion, so how do I get clients then?”

You need a client acquisition system that attracts, nurtures, and converts.

Not chases, pushes, and scares them away.

Which is why…

Over the next few days to my email list only, I’ll be teaching the LinkedIn Acquisition Triangle I’ve used for me and my clients to make multi 6 figures using LinkedIn only. 

Think if it as a free mini email workshop.

You can sign up here → https://lnkd.in/gzQKtyKF

I’ll be sending the trainings right into your inbox. 

Tomorrow we’re starting with the first foundation of the triangle ‘Magnetize’ 

Make sure to sign up today or you will miss out on the first training.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re:

🔹Playing too small
🔹Scared of success
🔹Afraid of your own potential

I just wrote a newsletter on how to overcome it by first understanding the Jonah Complex.

You can read it here → https://lnkd.in/gTHujvxD

“Over 1 million impressions! Can you believe it only led to 1 newsletter sign up and 0 dollars?!”

This is what the ghostwriting agency owner said to us on the writing team after a post went viral on Twitter. 

Here’s what’s shocking… this is not uncommon. Back when I was ghostwriting… 

I saw this a lot. 

Everyone aiming to get likes and impressions (the vanity metrics).

All which led to nearly no clients signed which means…

No money. 

This showed me firsthand why being respected online by your niche is FAR more important than being liked.

---

🔷 If you're struggling to write content that feels aligned with you while still attracting your dream clients on LinkedIn...

I ran a workshop teaching my 6-figure content system & strategy.

Catch the free recording here:

https://lnkd.in/eUqPr7vK

One of my clients has a hard to deal with client of her own.

Here’s how we handled it…

She told me on a call that one of her clients keeps responding to her messages later than agreed upon and also pays her invoices late every month. 

So 2 weeks ago, I got her to send her client an email.

I won’t tell you what the email said exactly.

But let’s just say it demanded respect from her client in a polite way.

(Most solopreneurs are afraid to do this because they fear they’ll lose the client)

Here’s what happened next…

Her client apologized, signed up to an automated subscription (no more late invoices), and agreed to respond within 24 hours as their contract stated. 

She was shocked but obviously happy.

I told her…

You have to set expectations with your clients and then hold that standard.

If not… they’ll walk all over you.

I didn’t start in the online space with authority or expertise.

Nobody did.

You build sh*t offline, keep stacking proof.

Share your wins (and losses) publicly. 

Then and only then will your credibility and status start to rise.

People will doubt and judge you, but you need to keep delusional self-belief…

Because you can’t let not having a bunch of authority yet be the reason you don’t keep building.

--

🔷 I created a 3-day mini course breaking down The LinkedIn Acquisition Triangle that I’ve used for me and my clients to generate almost half a million on LinkedIn.

You get instant access to it when you join my free Skool community, Identity & Income Breakers. Find us here: https://lnkd.in/dNFDt2yC

After working with 60+ solopreneurs 1:1, 

Here’s the biggest mistake they all make on LinkedIn…

→ Trying to be liked by everyone

Instead of:

🔹Writing targeted content relevant to the people they help
🔹Standing up against their dream client's injustices and enemies
🔹Engaging with potential clients and building relationships with them

They:

🔹Write broad generic content to get empty engagement
🔹Never have bold stances or opinions on topics in their niche
🔹Spend their time on big creators’ posts hoping to get a response (and when they do it’s usually a VA)

The goal here isn’t just to magnetize your dream clients…

It’s also to repel people who aren’t. 

Authority with the right people > being liked by everyone

--

🔷 I created a training breaking down The LinkedIn Acquisition Triangle that I’ve used for me and my clients to generate almost half a million on LinkedIn.

You get instant access to it when you join my free Skool community, Identity & Income Breakers. Find us here: https://lnkd.in/dNFDt2yC

2 years I ago I joined my first coaching program.

Here’s what surprises most people…

The guy who ran it didn’t have a huge following (around 10K subs).

When I found him on YouTube, he wasn’t famous.

And his videos weren’t high production, they were just him talking into the camera. 

But I still paid him $7K anyways. 

Here’s why…

I knew he could help me grow my coaching/consulting biz. 

He had the client proof. He had the authority. He had done it himself. 

And his content was relevant to where I was at and what I was struggling with. 

In other words, he knew his niche inside and out. 

Why does this matter to you? 

Because if you want to actually make money from LinkedIn…

The same rule applies. 

Stop trying to be LinkedIn famous and start aiming to be niche famous.

--

🔷 I created a training breaking down The LinkedIn Acquisition Triangle that I’ve used for me and my clients to generate almost half a million on LinkedIn.

You get instant access to it when you join my free Skool community, Identity & Income Breakers. Find us here: https://lnkd.in/dNFDt2yC

Meaning comes from progress.

When you're moving towards something you've decided is important to you...

Your mind has something to focus on.

This removes distractions and gives significance and meaning to your life.

Be bold.

Speak your truths.

Being too agreeable and aiming for broad engagement stops you from sharing your own opinions on topics. 

This forces you into the same broad vanilla content that’s all over LinkedIn right now.

Do this right…

And you’ll magnetize your people.

--

🔷 I created a 3-day mini course breaking down The LinkedIn Acquisition Triangle that I’ve used for me and my clients to generate almost half a million on LinkedIn.

You get instant access to it when you join my free Skool community, Identity & Income Breakers. Find us here: https://lnkd.in/dNFDt2yC

I’m looking for 5 more established leaders or creatives who are struggling to consistently attract clients.

If you’re the person who knows you’re capable of more (because you’ve already seen success) but right now, your business feels heavy, misaligned, and the clients aren't coming in like they used to…

My new program Built For Mastery is for you. 

The Promise: We 2X your current monthly recurring revenue (MRR) in 6 months or less. 

On the other side of this coaching program (this is not just a course), you will have my Mastery Triangle™ fully implemented into your life and business.

We focus on 3 key areas:

🔹Self-mastery to regain control of your life (an upgraded identity, mindset, and beliefs)

🔹Value creation mastery to gain control over your income (combining your skills and interests, packaging them into an irresistible offer, then getting attention to it)

🔹And leverage mastery to scale and gain control of your time (writing evergreen long-form content, distributing/repurposing it, then productizing your knowledge into a course/product)

I'm looking for 5 more awesome people to work with to create successful case studies and testimonials.

The "Work Until You Win" Guarantee: If you show up, do the work, and don't double your MRR in 6 months, I will continue working with you for free until you do.

So if you are…

🔹An established leader or creative who has been successful but lost the momentum
🔹Wanting to 2X your current MRR in 6 months or less
🔹Selling a mid to high ticket offer ($1,500+)
🔹Already working with clients and have at least 3 client testimonials
🔹Ready to master your craft and reach your full potential

DM me ‘MASTERY’ and I'll send you the details.

It’s first come first served. After these spots fill the price goes up. 

---

🔷PS. Watch the video below from one of my clients Jon and check the images in the comments from other clients I’ve already helped transform.

To mastery 🥂

taplio

The Battle

Matt Doan

Darion Rae

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreMatt Doan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDarion Rae's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Matt Doan

Darion Rae

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Matt Doan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDarion Rae's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMatt Doan's LinkedIn Performance