Foundr Magazine Podcast | Learn From Successful Founders & Proven Entrepreneurs, The Ultimate Startup Podcast For Business

Eight years ago, Charlie Hoehn had no job. He submitted application after application to no avail. Only two companies offered him employment. His choices? “Back-breaking labor and a pyramid scheme,” he says. Today, Charlie turns down work. He is a speaker, an author, and a marketing strategist. His recently-released book is Play It Away: A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety. At one point, the former unemployed man worked so much that it burned him out – but he triumphed over that, too, and wrote a book about curing stress. The turnaround is dramatic, and Charlie attributes his successful employment to his signature strategy: work for free. He didn't figure it out immediately. Charlie graduated in Colorado State University's Class of 2008 and soon faced a job market mired in recession. Bleak. Job-seeking millennials know it well. “I was just blasting out my resume to all these companies for jobs that I didn't really even want … because that's what everyone was doing,” Charlie says. “All my friends were doing that a