20 Things I Learned After I Quit My Job (and wish I knew before)

Yann Girard
Aug 26, 2017 · 10 min read

I wasted a lot of time and money during the first couple of years after I quit my job.

I didn’t have a clue about anything. And I could easily have done and learned most of these things while I still had a job. While I was still getting a paycheck at the end of each month.

But the truth is I didn’t. Because no one told me that those things would be the most important things to know, to understand, to learn and to be able to do.

So I decided to write them all down. Not just for you. But most importantly for myself. To remind myself of how stupid I was. But then again, if I wasn’t that stupid you wouldn’t be able to right this right here.

All of these things would have saved me many sleepless nights, sorrow, loads of frustration and thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. This is an extended list of the things I wrote down a few years ago. I updated it and added a few more things I learned over the years…

# I HAD NO CLUE ABOUT HOW TO MAKE MONEY

Making money on your own is hard. Especially when you were trained to get a paycheck at the end of each month in exchange for the time you spent sitting in a cubicle. And it takes a hell lot of time to unlearn this.

It takes a hell lot of time to re-learn how to take care of yourself. How to make money on your own. Without anyone handing you a paycheck at the end of the month. That’s probably the hardest thing I had to learn.

Looking back I have to admit that I could easily have started learning all of this while I still had a job. Trying to figure out how to make money on your own when you don’t have any cash coming in each and every month is one of the hardest things out there.

And it’s a lot easier and stress free when you still have a job, when you still have cash coming into your system at the end of each month.

Do you know how to make money on your own?

Just ask yourself this simple question.

And don’t lie to yourself…

How would you make money if you were fired tomorrow?

And applying for a new job wasn’t possible..

I know. This doesn’t sound very likely.

At least not right now.

It never sounds likely until it’s very likely.

# START SMALL TO BE BIG

If you want to write a book, start a blog instead.

If you want to start a blog, post your thoughts on Facebook instead.

If you want to start a company, start selling stuff instead.

If you want to run a marathon, go for 20 minute walks instead.

If you start with the end goal in mind you’ll never get there.

Start with something a lot smaller first.

Get rid of all the roadblocks first.

And then get good at that thing.

Without all the roadblocks.

Make it as simple as possible.

And then once you’re good enough, once you’ve started building momentum level up…

# SPREAD YOUR RISK

Whatever you do, don’t ever put yourself into a situation where you depend on the mercy of a single person, entity, company, government or whatnot. Don’t ever put yourself into a situation where a single person can make or break you.

Spread your risk across multiple projects, streams of income, partners, investments and so on. Don’t be stupid and put your own future and your family’s future into someone’s hands who could crush you tomorrow…

# I HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED FAILURE

Before I quit my job I never really failed at anything major. And when you don’t know how to deal with failure or how to handle potential failure, you might run into trouble if you try to figure it all out once you’ve quit your job. Once you don’t have a safety net anymore.

That’s why its probably a good idea to get used to failure while you still have that safety net. Start something on the side. Experiment, tweak and do stuff. Be that gal who does everything everybody else is afraid of.

Failure isn’t easy. No matter what all the failure porn out there says. It takes a hell lot of time to get used to failure. And trying to get used to failure while you’re already close to the abyss is never a great idea. When you quit your job and fail, you’ll fall into that abyss.

And for many people that’s the end. They will never ever get out of the abyss ever again. They will either stay down there forever or go back to their 9 to 5 gig.

If you’ve never experienced real failure before, try to fail at your day job while you’re still far away from the abyss. While you still have that safety net. Go over to 100 girls/guys at a bar and start talking to them. Start selling stuff online on Ebay. It doesn’t matter. Do whatever it takes.

Try to get used to dealing with failure in a low stake environment instead of a high stake environment. Put yourself into as many low stake environment before you put yourself into a high stake environment. Or else it might crush you…

# A PAYCHECK IS THE BEST THING OUT THERE

A paycheck means freedom. It means that for a while you don’t have to worry about where the next paycheck will come from. You don’t have to hunt down clients. You don’t have to release a new product. Or a new service. You don’t have to borrow money from people or institutions you don’t really like.

Being out there on your own is everything else except freedom. If no one needs you, you’re not free. You’re just out there on your own. It’s always good when someone needs you. When someone depends on you. When you’re so good at what you do that you can’t possibly be let go. That’s real freedom.

Freedom from worries. Freedom from worrying about not being able to pay next month’s rent. Freedom from worrying about how you’re going to pay the IRS. Freedom from being worried about your future and how you’re going to survive for the next few months.

I know. Entrepreneurship, being a freelancer and being out there on your own is currently being sold as the dream. It’s everything but a dream. It’s more like eating glass and trying to wash it down with poison. At least for the first couple of years.

Everything is so much easier when you get a paycheck at the end of each month..

# THE BIGGER THE RISK

The bigger the risk you’re willing to take, the bigger the potential upside. The earlier you join something, the more you can win. But the risk of losing is also a lot higher. And that’s what makes it so tricky.

If you join when everybody else jonis, then its usually already too late and everybody already cashed out, was successful, built their audience or whatnot. When you join when everybody else joins, you’ll be competing with everybody else who’s competing with everybody else.

But don’t be stupid. Only take risks when you can afford to take risks. Don’t quit your job with zero savings. Don’t quit your job if all you have is an idea. Spread your risk. In all areas of life…

# NETWORK

When I quit my job I had no clue about networking. I didn’t even know what the word networking really meant. Simply because when you have a job you don’t have to network. All you have to do is to go for lunch with some of your colleagues day in and day out and you’re good.

So when I quit my job I didn’t have a network. And I still don’t really have a network. I’m just a lazy guy. I prefer to stay at home. But the truth is that it’s just really hard to build a network once you’re basically unemployed.

Because that’s what you are when you’re working on your own things. No matter how glorious or how life changing you think the stuff you’re working on is. For most people you’re just unemployed.

And it’s a lot easier to network and to open doors if you work for a big and prestigious company. Try to leverage that before you go all in on being unemployed…

# EXPOSURE IS EVERYTHING

A lot of people say that ideas are the currency of the 21stcentury. For me, exposure is the currency of the 21stcentury.

If you have an audience and can expose people to that audience, you’ll be able to get in touch with almost anyone. On the other hand if you’re a nobody and don’t have an audience, if you can’t offer exposure then it’s whole different story.

Exposure is powerful. Because everybody is looking for exposure. Be it on an email list. A podcast. A blog. A video chat or whatever. That’s what people are looking for. Because it helps them to get their ideas, products or services in front of a new audience for free. Instead of having to pay for it…

# NO ONE WILL MAGICALLY FIND OUT ABOUT YOU

Getting discovered is never ever going to happen. No matter how good you are. No matter how amazing your work is. SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE’s just way to much noise out there. And the competition is brutal.

Even some of the best artists out there had to send their demo tapes to hundreds of record labels. Or upload hundreds of videos to YouTube before they were discovered.

It’s all about showing up over and over again, showing your work and building that audience. Ideas don’t spread. You need to make them spread. And you don’t need to quit your job for that…

# CONSISTENCY

Whatever you do, the more often you do it, the better you’ll get at it. And the more people will start to notice. This is an absolute no brainer. But it took me more than two years to figure it out.

Ever since I started writing and publishing one piece of content every single day I lose a lot less time trying to figure out things like when to write, what to write about and a lot of other useless things. I just have to write. Every single day. No matter what.

And not only this. Doing something every day will also help you to improve your skills. Because quantity leads to quality. The more often you do something, the better you’ll get.

# VISION

I always though that this was some business guru BS stuff. And it’s true. The way most people, books or blog posts talk about vision is pretty much useless for people like you and me. And what I really mean when I say that is that it was useless for me.

If you don’t know what your mission is or what your vision is, then all of this advice is pretty much useless. Because the only thing we really need to know is how to find that vision. That purpose. That mission.

t took me quite a while to figure out how it really works. And no one ever really talks about it…

The only way to figure out what you want in life what your mission or your vision is, is to do many different things. To try many different things. To do things long enough until you become good at them. And then over time the pieces of your puzzle will form a beautiful picture.

But that picture is only visible looking back. You can’t see it while you’re collecting pieces. You can’t see it when you’re trying to predict the future.

And because doing many different things, having a non linear career or life is completely against what we’re told to do in life, it’s so hard for us to find our purpose, vision and mission in life…

# PERSISTENCE ISN’T THE SECRET SAUCE

A lack of other options is the real secret sauce. Because if you don’t have any other options, if you have to make it work, you’ll have to do everything you can to make it work. You’ll have to hustle. And do things you’d otherwise never do. You have to succeed. No matter what it takes. Because there is no other choice. I really wish I’d understood this earlier. Because then I would have burned a lot more bridges and would have closed a lot more doors a lot earlier.

# OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

There’s a good story and a real story behind every overnight success. The good story is the one you read online. The one that sounds like a dream come true. And then there’s the real story.

Like that story of AirBnB.

The founders traveled around the US visiting each and every apartment owner individually to convince them to offer their homes to complete strangers. And then they had to do the same thing with the people they wanted to book nights at some complete stranger’s home.

# ONLINE TRIBE

Everybody says that you’re the average of the five people you surround yourself with.

I always thought that this advice was useless. Because if you’re the average of the five people you surround yourself with, why would those smart people even want to hang out with you?

And if they did, they’d probably not be so smart and lose their smarts because, well… after all I’d also be part of that group.

And it took me quite a while to really understand this and what it really meant. At least for me…

Here’s what I did: I stopped consuming almost all content, be it blog posts, podcasts, books or any other type of content and started focusing on three to four key people whose stuff I really liked.

That was my group of 5. Well, four. But you get the idea. This helped me to eliminate a lot of conflicting advice that only held me back and I started to understand everything a lot better. I really wish I’d found my online tribe a few years earlier.

# YOUR RULES

It will never end. There will always be things to think about. Things to do. Things to write about. But at one point you just gotta call it a day. No matter how much you’ve already written, said or done. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do now. It’s already past 10pm and I’m getting sleepy. There are no rules. You make your own rules…

This was a part of my new book The Underdogs Guide To Winning When You’ve Failed At Almost Everything. I’ll release the next part tomorrow. It’s also available for pre-order for pay-as-much-as-you-want. You can grab your copy here: https://gum.co/XHyRD


Originally published at yanngirard.typepad.com.

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Yann Girard

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I think, live & breathe here: http://yanngirard.com

Thought Pills

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