Leaving My Job

Well well well, the time has finally come. It is time to see what this thing called entrepreneurship is actually all about. I’ve been itching to do it for years, but life has gotten in the way of that. No more excuses or reasons why it’s not the time “yet”. And by “it” I mean go out on my own and brave the world of finding or hunting for my own food. Every single position I’ve had leading up to this moment has prepared me for what I’m about to embark on and I’m so thankful for all of it — even the “bad” jobs, which I’ve undoubtably had a few …In a few weeks, I’m going to be 43. If you’re reading this and you’re sitting at 23, you must think I am old. I used to think that when I was your age. Then the wheels churn and time rattles on and each year feels like it was exponentially shorter than the last. That cliched saying, “it flies by” is said for a reason; I’ll just leave it at that. But I won’t bore you with the blow by blow details of what took me so long to get here, though I do believe that timing is everything. We are going to go through the abridged version; at least the key points in the journey that is my sales career. And before I go too far into it, I will say that 43 still feels like 23, so there’s that to look forward to. I’m older and wiser (at least I tell myself that) but I’m still a kid in my mind, and hope that stays for eternity, or the rest of my life, whichever is longer.

I’m not the first person to jump out of their comfort zone and into the heat of the unknown. So why write this? Because I wanted to cement this out into the universe that you too can do it. Well I haven’t actually done ‘it’ yet either, but I’ve got the wheels in motion. And I want to tell you why now.

I started out my career, all things considered, fairly in a lucky way. I had a lot of blind confidence and believed to an extent that I had super powers. Because every inch of me believed these things, I was able to score a great opportunity fresh out of college at a decent company. The job title sucked, the pay was weak, the men I worked for would be fired for harrassment if they existed in 2016 Corporate America, but all in all it was a great first gig at a good company. It definitely could have been worse. Then I moved on to sell art in a gallery. Sounds glamorous, right? Sure, I got to visit huge mansions behind the gates of affluent Boca Raton, FL. But the art was paint by numbers, and my coworkers prided themselves on embellishing the truth about the origins of the art. None of that mattered, as my eyes were set on the bright lights of New York City, and this was all but a stepping stone to lead me there.

2 job applications, 1 interview and a free ride all expenses paid relocation package was my ticket to the BIG apple in January 2000. Man did I take a bite out of that place! After almost 5 years of working in the publishing industry in NYC, I decided it was time to get married, buy a house and move back home to South Florida. At first, I didn’t even realize how bad the job market was exactly as I kept my cushy NY job for the first couple of years. After leaving that job, I landed in career suicide. One shitty job after the next, at one shitty company after the next. It was like I started off where I wanted to be and then ended up where most people start. How is this my life? And what did I do to end up here were questions that would often keep me up at night.

Nothing ever felt like it fit me right. You ever try on 10 pairs of jeans and not one of them remotely fits you well enough to take home? Yeah, that pretty much sums up that era in my life. Then, I had the pleasure of taking on my current position. The one that I am about to leave next Thursday. Before taking it, I had grown unsettled with working for some other organizations with their set of rules and antequated sales metrics that were only going to continue to keep me unhappy if I decided to continue down that road. I’m a free bird and if you allow me to roam around and do my thing, I will come back with food for you AND the neighborhood. A start up was just what I was looking for. I could learn how to start and run a business and I could make a difference in building out the process of things. It would be up to me and the team to structure what good looked like and define how getting there was going to be measured. It was exactly the kind of thing that I was looking for, before going off on my own and doing it all myself. And I did just that.

Sure the road wasn’t always paved evenly or smoothly. But it was my road and I was glad to be able to be on it without a snow plow driving right up behind me. Guess what leaving me to my own devices did for my sales abilities? I never made a single cold call in 2 years, yet I won a lot of business. I spoke at events in front of hundreds of people. I traveled alone on official business not knowing anyone and coming back with handfuls of friends, colleagues, and partnerships to show for it. I worked for someone who finally believed in me again and supported that belief day in and out.

I would attribute that leadership to why I stayed for 2 years, instead of leaving after 1. But in the end, I was growing more and more restless to see what I could make of myself on my own, and the abilities that I have collected throughout this past 18 years to be all down to me to share. I am excited. I am ready. I look forward to sharing more about that once I am complete with my current post and moved onto building the next.

I wish my current employer and colleagues well. You made me the best (and sometimes the worst) version of myself; something that had been missing or disabled for many years prior to and I am eternally grateful for being able to find that person in myself again.

And I am most definitely open to advice, suggestions and anything else that could help me succeed. Thanks for reading…let’s see where this next chapter leads us!