I got to be an Amazon VP because a series of managers fought to promote me and pay me more. This was no accident. I used "The Magic Loop" which I invented with my first manager.

Here is that story and how you can do it yourself today. In my first job out of college, my new manager had no idea how the company’s tech worked. The way I handled this had an impact on my entire career, all the way through what I do now as an Executive Coach.

Her not knowing our tech is how I discovered “The Breakthrough Loop”.

Big tech jobs are not what they were. Amazon made my career and "my life", but things have changed. Here is the good, the bad and the ugly of today’s big tech job options: (1) The Good

- Great Comp.

People may want more, but tech worker pay dwarfs everyone except Wall Street traders.

I learned firsthand as an Amazon VP that hard things are much scarier in our minds than they are in reality. And, the fear of failing is always much greater than the likelihood of actually failing.

I spent years avoiding tasks that: - Seemed hard
- Used skills I thought of as my weaknesses
- Required activities I dislike
- Require speaking to people I don’t know (I'm an introvert in this way)

I was asked to describe my typical day as an Amazon Director and VP. My answer was short: “meetings.” That was accurate, but here I will go into more detail. This is a day in the life of an Amazon VP. I will cover normal days, big decisions, and crisis management.

◾Normal Days

On “normal” days, my answer of “meetings” was pretty accurate.

At Amazon, my team of 800 had more than 75 managers. I saw many thrive and others fail. A Harvard study identified the 4 main risk factors of manager failure, so I am going to share how managers can fix them and avoid failure. I will share what individual contributors can do to help themselves (by helping their managers identify these risk factors).

The 4 main risk factors:

1. Lack of self-awareness
2. Lack of two-way empathy
3. Unproductive relationships with employees
4. Absence of goal alignment

I got to Amazon VP after 2 promotions by managing up well. My managers fought for my promotions.

You get "fight for you" manager support by building a partnership and meeting 3 criteria that get your manager to put their reputation and energy into helping you: 1) Good work performance
2) People they trust
3) They "like" you

One of Jeff Bezos' most famous principles is "It's always Day 1." Since his first letter to shareholders in 1997, it has been a call to arms for Amazon to maintain its entrepreneurial spirit and speed of a startup while growing scale and resources. We can take away valuable insights for ourselves from this idea.

First, let's define what Day 1 means using Jeff's words:

“It’s a very simple and age-old idea about renewal and rebirth. Every day is Day 1. Every day you are deciding what you’re going to do...

At Amazon my teams hired over 1000 people, often in very competitive markets. My class on how to do this has been seen by more than 15,000 within Amazon.

Now, I am bringing a public version to you.

Here are some of the key lessons: 1) Great talent on your team lets you succeed without it all being on you.

2) The best talent already has good jobs, so even when there are "people available" you do not want to just depend on applicants.

I've reviewed more than 10,000 resumes in my career, as a part of interviewing 2500+ people and hiring over 1000 into my teams. @bytebytego and @alexxubyte invited me to share the top three mistakes I see in resumes in their Newsletter today.

blog.bytebytego.com/p/the-top-3-re… This article goes into great depth and they added clear illustrations as a part of it.

You will be able to see real resumes as well as before-and-after examples of modifying different parts of each section.

No one ever taught me how to be a VP. My team was doubling in size every year and I rode that elevator to a promotion, but it dropped me off alone. I had to teach myself.

Here is how I did that: The new role included a few challenges:

1) My manager (a friend and mentor) was reorganized into another team. Thus, my team grew even more when I became responsible for the financial success of the business on top of the technical product. This was something I had never done.

In my 15+ years at Amazon, I promoted 8 reports from Senior Manager to Director and contributed to 25+ other Director promotions.

I know what it takes to get promoted and why "top performers" get overlooked.

Here's what you need to know: There are two possibilities for why you are not getting promoted.

1. You are being overlooked.
2. You are being considered but not selected.

These are different and you need to know the reasons they could happen.