Life After Your Dream Job
My Pursuit of Real Fulfillment
Young jobseekers used to reach out to me asking how I did what I did — land a job in a professional baseball front office. That still happens. But now I get more and more messages from burnt out full-timers also asking how I did what I did — escape the industry altogether and embark on a path towards overall fulfillment.
In college I carved out a niche in the baseball analytics world by publicly sharing my research on Twitter and on my blog Something Tangible. After I experienced the hiring process for R&D internships and full-time entry-level roles in the industry, I wrote a comprehensive guide for those seeking to achieve their dream of working in baseball. Then, I wrote candidly about the downsides of the industry that led to my decision to pursue data science work in an entirely different field after less than 18 months employed in the sports world. For over a year, I’ve been intentionally silent in the baseball landscape.
If you knew me as an active member of the baseball analytics community, there’s a good chance we haven’t spoken in a while. But recently, I’ve spent a good chunk of time with those in and around the baseball industry, sharing my story of life since I left. I share with hungry up-and-comers looking for ways to optimize their resume and navigate job interviews. I share with salaried employees in distress, wondering how much longer they can tolerate their unhealthy workplace situation. I share with those wanting to peek over the horizon as they plan their leap of faith into a whole new world.
Because I seem to be telling the same story on loop, I figured it might be time to come out of hibernation to share my experiences with the world in hopes of helping those in the baseball industry and beyond.
I came to my senses after hours of staring at colorful, useless heatmaps in a white windowless room deep inside the stadium I used to call my second home.
In a moment of clarity I examined my surroundings: a sea of empty desks bathed in harsh fluorescent light and finally acknowledged to myself that I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t angry or sad or mad, but I wasn’t happy. I was numb, and had been since…how many months had it been since I felt excited to show up to work?
When you take a job in a Major League Baseball front office and accomplish one of your primary life milestones, you’re going to feel big things. Excitement to be a part of a team. Enthusiasm to contribute to winning. Curiosity to learn and grow as an employee and as a person. At least, these were true for me. What I wanted for myself was to be happy and fulfilled in my life, and I deeply believed that getting this job and doing this work would make that happen.
On that cold winter day, and the next, and the next, I had to confront a very scary realization. My belief was wrong. I had no internal conflict. No doubt. Just a sticky note stuck to the inside of my forehead reading something like
“You thought sitting in this seat would bring you happiness. You were wrong. Happiness is out there for you. It is not here. And it likely never will be.”
The fallout from that understanding changed everything for me externally. Soon after, I walked into my boss’s boss’s office and gave my two weeks notice and had given up my ID by the end of the day.
I had diligently accumulated an emergency fund consisting of about 4 months of living expenses in my savings account. That money allowed me to make my departure swiftly and allowed me space to regroup and reorient. (I would highly recommend accumulating such an emergency fund to literally anybody in any situation if it is financially possible, especially in situations related to quitting/changing jobs. Having that safety net has given me the freedom to make better career decisions time and time again.)
Now unemployed, I realized that internally, this event changed absolutely nothing. I was still as hungry as ever to find happiness and fulfillment. The question became “If working in baseball isn’t my path to life satisfaction, where should I look?” My year+ since leaving baseball has been primarily concerned with answering that question. Those closest to me have seen me turn my relentless dedication and curiosity away from conducting baseball research and towards addressing questions about myself and my life.
I have not been shy about my opinion that modern MLB front offices seem to be utilizing R&D in a way that does not maximize ROI and adheres too closely with the sport’s existing status quo for my liking. I wrote about that here.
One of my first big internal realizations was: I held this view towards front office strategy and resource allocation in part because I was projecting about my own life. I was the one playing it too safe. I was the one not taking enough risks. I was the one who was getting too comfortable with the parts of my world that just weren’t as good as they could be.
I noticed that instead of trying to convince an MLB front office to revolutionize its processes to align with my grand visions, I could get the same feeling (and better results) by putting my energy into revolutionizing my own ways of being to better align with the person I want to be. Crazy right? In the same way I used to look for opportunities for improvement in Griffin Jax’s pitch mix, I began looking for opportunities for improvement in my own world.
What happened next changed the course of my life. I started seeing a therapist. I’ve always been someone who loves “talking things out” and found it incredibly valuable (and well worth the monetary investment) to talk to an unbiased third-party and professional psychologist about my thought processes. We spoke about my values. What is truly important to me? We spoke about personal struggles like social anxiety I had been experiencing since pre-COVID. We spoke about what drives me to work so hard and what sacrifices I was comfortable making in order to continue doing so. We talked about the big, scary, real shit.
Up until this breaking point, work had been my everything. People in the baseball industry knew my name because I had my foot slammed on the gas pedal at all times. I woke up thinking about baseball and went to sleep thinking about baseball. “This job is a lifestyle,” I had been told. And that was true. I was doing what it took to be successful in the industry.
And then, seemingly all at once, I stopped. I now had bigger fish to fry.
On my journey to understand myself better, I spent many days meditating on the question: “How could I quit something so wholeheartedly that I worked so hard to achieve? Why do I feel no internal conflict about that decision?” It was a good question that I wrestled with for a long time. How the hell did I go from being a prolific baseball researcher to being completely disinterested in the entire sport seemingly overnight?
Months of deep introspection in (and between) therapy sessions allowed me to arrive at the answer. My work in baseball was an opportunity for me to hide from the other parts of my life that made me feel bad about myself. It’s that simple. In baseball, I was in a world where I felt great about myself and my abilities. Outside of baseball, I felt very insecure and uncomfortable being myself. In a way, work and achievement was like a drug I used to numb what I didn’t want to feel. This was another realization that punched me in the face and left no room for ambiguity or doubt. I knew it to be true, very deep down. I developed a reputation for being prolific with my baseball research output because, like many overachievers, I constantly felt Not Good Enough (in the non-work aspects of my life) and doing good work temporarily made those feelings go away.
The realization led to one of the biggest intentional lifestyle changes I have ever made. I decided I would “de-centralize” the role of work, of achievement, in my life. I wanted to give myself the opportunity to learn what a satisfying life could look like without this emotional crutch. Without this place to stroke my ego instead of working on the root causes of my dissatisfaction.
I proudly took a job as a data science contractor with Nike that aligned with my values in many ways (and is the position I still hold today). The role allows me to utilize my technical skillset and passion for communicating complex insights to nontechnical decision makers, just like I did in the baseball world. But it also allows me the flexibility of remote work, the dignity of being paid what I am worth, and the energy at the end of the day to foster a balanced life that I actually want to live. Most importantly, it’s not my everything. It’s just a job.
Thanks to my work in therapy, I no longer lean so heavily on my accomplishments in order to feel like a valuable person in the world. This new reality for my relationship with work, with achievement, has been more valuable to me and my pursuit of fulfillment than if I had stayed in baseball and won 10 consecutive World Series rings.
As I grew as a person and faced those big scary real insecurities head-on, my interest in baseball waned to nearly nothing. I remain proud of the work I did. I remain incredibly grateful for the amazing people I met along the way who helped me achieve my goal. I know it is rare for dreams to come true, and I am still in awe that my little life got to have that gem of an experience. I have no regrets.
But looking back, I now see that my time in baseball helped me get through a difficult time in my life. However, in this next chapter of my life, the baseball industry (or the act of doing baseball research in general) cannot offer me what I am seeking.
Instead I have found aspects of that fulfillment outside of work that I have so genuinely coveted. In my relationships: with my first serious romantic relationship, with my family, with my friends, and most importantly with myself. In my hobbies: lifting weights, playing rec sports, reading, writing, volunteering, traveling, goofing around, and learning new skills (like riding a unicycle!). I grew my hair to my shoulders and chopped it all off. I left friend groups with whom I didn’t feel like I could be myself. I watch the sunset every chance I get.
I am learning to meditate and process emotions and express deep gratitude for my existence on this planet. I am learning to accept myself exactly as I am, regardless of how much I accomplish or what other people think of me. These are the parts of me that had no room to exist or come to be alongside my preoccupation with work and achievement.
Think about how much you know about baseball. All the players, their backgrounds, every team’s roster and prospects, the trade market and pitch design and player development and scouting and… it’s probably an overwhelming amount of information and deep expertise.
Now imagine knowing that much about yourself. Your likes, your dislikes, which situations make you feel which emotions, what patterns you have in relationships and why, what makes you uneasy about being alone, what you stand for, what makes you who you are, and who you want to be.
That is my new goal: To be the world’s foremost expert on myself. To make decisions in alignment with who I am. To accept the parts of me I used to work and work and work to avoid. To respect myself in the workplace and everywhere else.
I don’t have it all figured out and I’m nowhere near the end of my journey. But every time I talk to someone struggling to make sense of deep dissatisfaction in a job (or a life) they worked so hard to achieve, I can now tell them:
I’ve been there. It gets better. This is what my journey has looked like so far. Yours will look different. But take the first step towards living in alignment with who you are and you will not regret it. I know I don’t.
Thank you for reading. If you found the information valuable and would like to delve deeper into the topics discussed, I offer personalized one-on-one consultation calls in which we can discuss your unique situation. This service is fee-based but I aim to keep the cost reasonable so it is not a barrier. I am excited to hear about your situation and brainstorm ways to get you closer to where you want to be in work and in life!
To schedule a consultation call, please reach out to me via email at epm.moore@gmail.com or via my LinkedIn.
