Megan and I were cleaning some junk drawers a few weeks ago.

You know the kind. Full of random things you haven't looked at in years but can't quite throw away.

Found an official-looking envelope she didn't recognize at first. Point Park University stamped across it.

My college transcript. The official one. Meant to stay sealed until presented to some future authority who would need proof of my academic record.

Megan opened it!

Just ripped right through that seal like it was junk mail.

My first reaction: "That was supposed to stay sealed."

My second reaction: "Wait. Who was I saving this for?"

After all, this was something I'd carefully preserved for 23 years in the back of a junk drawer behind broken pencils with nubby erasers, ziplock bags of safety pins, and tiny screws for the apocalypse.

Something almost nobody has ever asked for and almost nobody ever will.

The Only Time It Mattered

In 2.5 ish decades, exactly one organization has requested my physical college transcript.

I needed it for substitute teaching in 2023 because that paper was the difference between getting paid $17 an hour versus $19 an hour. That’s it. One of the only times the sealed envelope mattered.

The college acted shocked when I didn’t have it readily available and needed to request it.

“You don’t have your transcripts?! Who doesn’t have their transcripts?!”

And I had a similar reaction back to them: “You might be the only people who care about this. And you only cared about it 2.5 ish decades ago. Now, nobody really cares.”

Since starting my own business, nobody has ever asked what I majored in. (Theater, for the record.)

Nobody has ever asked about my GPA.

Nobody has ever requested to see that sealed, notarized, official document that was supposed to be so essential to my future.

The thing I once thought would open doors has rarely been mentioned since opening the doors at RedTale Communications in 2020.

What Actually Matters

Years ago, I stood in an old airplane hangar on an Air Force Base in the Midwest. I was there to train intel analysts. Some classified work. Serious people doing serious things.

And I thought to myself: Am I qualified to do this?

I was. Because I had made an impact. Because they needed someone who could do what I could do. Not because of a piece of paper from Point Park University.

I had trained 200 Air Force analysts with techniques I learned from other consultants, not from my college training. This is not to say my college experience doesn’t matter - it absolutely did and does, it’s just that the piece of paper that details my class schedule doesn’t seem to really be needed anymore.

Megan has a similar experience when coaching communication for executives and leaders. She doesn’t spend a single second telling them about her past work helping to pass legislation protecting the ocean and the marine mammals and sea turtles in it.

Honestly, why would those people care unless they were marine biology buffs?

She’s instead focusing on the work she does with them on making direct eye contact, thoughtful listening, and how to be present throughout an entire conversation.

Sometimes, what you can do right now matters more than what you did 20 years ago.

For me, it's the work of live sketching means racing around a big board on the side of rooms with a marker holster and worn-out knee pads. No one thinks twice about my college alma mater or my GPA.

They care that I can do something that they need to have done. Right now. In this moment.

The credential was supposed to matter. The impact is what actually does.

The Theater Degree

For years, I thought my theater degree was a mistake. A waste. Something I needed to apologize for or explain away because I wasn’t working in that field.

Megan helped me see it differently.

The communication skills I built. The presence in a room. The ability to perform. The “mask work” training taught me to communicate without speaking, letting my whole body tell a story.

All of it transferred. Just not in the way I expected.

The degree itself doesn’t matter. What I learned while getting it prepared me for what I do now.

Nobody asks about the degree, but they just experience what it taught me.

What Are You Chasing?

That transcript is back in a drawer somewhere. Still technically “ruined” because the seal was broken.

But it was never going to be used anyway.

Which makes me wonder: what credentials are we chasing that nobody will ever ask for?

What certs are we collecting that might not actually matter when it comes to the work needing to be done?

Any collegiately-sealed envelopes sitting around we might be protecting that could stay in a junk drawer for three decades without anyone noticing?

I’m not saying education doesn’t matter. I’m saying the paper proof of it matters less than we’ve been told. That your exact “degree title” may not mean as much as all the skills and experience you developed while earning it.

What do people remember?

What you can do. How you show up. The impact you make in the room. The problems you solve right now. What skills did you learn along the way that you can apply?

That’s what creates opportunity. That’s what actually opens doors.

The sealed transcript was supposed to be a ticket to credibility.

But in reality, credibility comes from showing up and doing the work.

Not from a piece of paper nobody ever asks to see.

Grateful you are here,

Wade