What I Learned Working 7 Jobs in 7 Years

Welcome back! Great to have you for another edition of the JS Analytics newsletter.

Time for a personal story and slight detour from data stuff.

I know what you’re thinking with that headline — 7 jobs in 7 years.

No, I wasn’t fired from any of them. I left each voluntarily. But let me back up and start from the beginning.

I cut my teeth, and spent the majority of those 7 years in the healthcare industry, starting out in operations roles before transitioning to data.

I worked in various sides of the industry - from medical devices to telehealth to revenue cycle (aka healthcare finance) to even compliance - for very different companies - from Fortune 500 to early-stage startups. A few positions involved consulting, procurement, and implementation, which gave me exposure to a number of other companies.

A few years into this stretch, I had some health issues that landed me in the hospital and kicked off a journey to fix my lifestyle. I ended up getting control of my health by following unconventional, non-mainstream diet and exercise regimens.

Being forced to question my long-held beliefs on health started bleeding into my professional life. Rather than accepting things at face-value, I became interested in seeing what was behind the curtain - truly understanding the businesses I was working within to uncover root causes of issues and opportunities to help them grow.

While this has become a valuable skill for what I do now, it quickly led to me becoming disenfranchised with the healthcare industry (the more you dig, the more waste you find, the more you realize incentives in healthcare are all mixed up).

Knowing data is useful across industries, I doubled down on those skills and used it as my way out.

Although working 7 jobs in 7 years isn’t something I’d typically recommend, the exposure to different business environments did prepare me for what I do now at JS Analytics - helping business owners and investors grow their businesses.

If I had to take away one learning, tying it back to data, it’s this: data is ultimately a supporting function (at least for most businesses). Data is a tool that can be used to make your job easier and improve your company’s performance. But to make that tool truly useful requires a deep understanding of the business, including the people, processes, and products. Data and analytics systems that are disconnected from the business won’t get you very far.

So there it is, my story of 7 jobs in 7 years and how it started me on the path of JS Analytics.

Thanks for reading!
Josh

P.S. To learn more about JS Analytics and what we do, check out our website here.

If you’re interested in becoming a client of JS Analytics, feel free to grab time on my calendar here.