Hi, I’m Varun Negandhi, founder of Beyond Grad.

Have you reached this point in your career yet?

A point where you realize that your career will not move if you continue to sit in cruise control mode.

Maybe this feeling was triggered when:

• You saw a coworker get a higher paying role with more responsibilities.
• Or, a friend started studying again to boost their career.
• Or, a friend bragged that they got a big pay raise.
• Or, your company went through a re-org, and you realized that you might be at risk in the next one.

At that moment, you feel like a tiny screw in a big machine. Even if the screw falls off, the machine keeps on running.

And it can be scary.

We need stability and growth in our careers. Not just for work fulfillment, but mainly to support the lives we dream of living.

A life that we have designed using our experiences while growing up and by wanting to emulate the lives of people we admire.

So, to have a career we want, which in turn helps us create the life we want to live (and not get screwed), we have to put our foot on the gas pedal.

How can you achieve your career and lifestyle goals?

You can find many approaches through books, schooling, and personal development courses.

The one that has worked best for me is to adopt a mindset of an entrepreneur and run my career like a business.

By being an intrapreneur.

Using business principles, I have gone from being an average employee who is just a number in the books, to being an integral part of my company’s success.

Here’s a testimonial from my boss, Brad Tillock, who is the President of EngSim Corp.

“Varun has gone above and beyond his responsibilities to help our company succeed. As a Sr. Engineer he is a top performer in the way he delivers on his projects. In his additional role as an Intrapreneur, he has injected fresh energy in the way we position our company, understand our ideal clients, and select marketing channels.”

Again, the primary reason why you and I want a successful career is the same. It is to live a life we desire.Being a top performer at work comes with its perks. I have raised my salary by an average of 9.18% every year, have excellent benefits, and I’ve learned entrepreneurship through courses fully funded by my company. All this while being an immigrant in the US.

And to achieve that, we have to come out of cruise control mode, and manage our career like a business.

In BeyondGrad, we will dissect entrepreneurship principles to jump-start our careers to design our rich lives. Sign-up to receive our Ultimate Guide to Negotiate a Raise and any future guides we publish.