Why Quitting Your Job to Chase Your Dream Is a Terrible Idea
We’re conditioned to see big career leaps as tales of risk and reward, but they’re mostly fables.
Not long ago, my friend Bryan quit his corporate job working as a technical writer for a Fortune 500 company in order to do something new.
On his last day, everyone in the office expressed a mix of envy and surprise. They couldn’t believe he was leaving, that he was making such a big jump. But the truth is Bryan had been planning this moment for 10 years.
Take a long, hard look at many of the business books on your shelf, listen to a self-help guru wax nostalgic on her own career story, or visit with an old college friend who’s done really well for himself, and you’ll likely hear the same phrase over and over: “I took the leap.”
This is the phrase we love to repeat when talking about big success. It’s a tale of risk and reward, one we hear constantly from the mouths of wealthy entrepreneurs, big-name movie stars, and successful artists. But it’s a lie.
BIG BREAKS COME SLOW
I was recently asked on a podcast how I became a full-time writer. The host wanted to know what my big break was.
