Michael is an aerospace engineer who built a full career coaching business on the side, and his story is proof that the path to who you are meant to become rarely looks the way you planned it.

Two Lives in College

Michael grew up in Orlando after moving from New Jersey and even living on a boat in Key West for a few years. His parents pushed education hard, and he showed up to the University of Central Florida ready to chase straight A’s the same way he had in his engineering magnet high school. That lasted about a year.

Once he locked down his GPA requirements for his scholarship, Michael realized he did not need a 4.0, he needed a 3.0. So he engineered his own schedule, skipping classes he had already calculated he could pass, and spent the rest of his time working at a gym, a restaurant, and as a birthday party host. He told me he basically lived two lives throughout college, one inside the classroom and one out in the real world where he was quietly building the skills that would define his future.

It was at that gym job where everything shifted. That is where he got introduced to personal development content and books, and where he started to realize there was more to life than school. He still graduated with his aerospace engineering degree, landed an internship at Lockheed Martin through pure networking, got let go not long after, and was rehired within twenty four hours once another manager caught wind of his resume.

The Resume That Broke the Rules

One of my favorite parts of this conversation was hearing how Michael got his foot in the door in the first place. Every engineer he talked to told him the same thing, keep your resume to one clean page. Michael figured if everyone was doing that, it made the advice average. So he built a five page resume with his photo on it, colors, and his favorite quote from Andy Frasella. It should not have worked. It did. The hiring team told him they picked him because of that resume.

That story became a theme for the rest of our conversation, the idea that the well worn path is not always the right one, and that trusting your own instincts sometimes means ignoring what everyone else is telling you to do.

Moving to Arizona and Building Formal Win

After college, Michael worked at Lockheed and eventually Northrop Grumman as a systems engineer, all while building his coaching business, Formal Win, in the background. He shared how his move to Arizona came out of a season of change, a long relationship ending, prayer, and a conversation with his coach Ian Macklin. Not long after landing in Arizona, a Northrop Grumman opportunity opened up that matched his exact role, down to the type of hardware he had been working with.

Formal Win exists because Michael talked to over a hundred engineers during his own job search and heard the same generic advice over and over. He wanted to build something different, a coaching relationship that treats a career like a business rather than a job, and he has stayed one on one with his clients because he believes in the quality of what he offers over the speed of scaling.

Striving Versus Sonship

Michael shared a mindset shift that stuck with me long after we finished recording. He talked about the difference between striving, always feeling like you have to earn your worth, and sonship, the idea that you are already fully known, fully loved, and fully cherished. He repeats it to himself constantly, we do not have to do it, we get to do it. That single shift in language has become something of a personal practice for him, and it shaped so much of how he talked about his business, his faith, and his relationships.

He also credited a lot of his growth to the LA Group and to Andy Elliott’s teaching that if you do not sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice. That combination of faith, discipline, and service seems to be the thread running through everything Michael is building.

What Comes Next

Michael is now working on scaling Formal Win, bringing on a virtual assistant, hiring from within his own client base, and eventually building out certifications and training for future coaches. His long term vision goes even further, he wants to speak at schools, become a kind of startup incubator for engineers, and help people see that a corporate career is not the only path available to them.

Before we wrapped, Michael left listeners with a piece of advice worth sitting with. Whatever scares you the most to remove from your life is probably exactly what you need to cut to get to the next level. For him it was a relationship. For someone else it might be a habit, a friend group, or the music they listen to when they are down.

Michael Deleo is proof that you can build a meaningful career in engineering and still feel called to serve people in a completely different way. If you are an engineer looking for guidance, or if you just needed a reminder that business grows out of service rather than the chase for money, this episode is for you.

About me:

I am currently a Master Facilitator for The Elliott Group in addition to being on the board of advisors for our Cultural Transformation Department in ELLIOTT ARMY.

With over 14 years of client service experience, I have held substantial leadership roles in the automotive industry. I’m also an accredited coach, a speaker, a triathlon finisher, and a wife. To contact me for engagements, you can reach me at [email protected].

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