I wasted a lot of time and money during the first year after I quit my job.
It would have saved me many sleepless nights, sorrow and loads of frustration. I really wish I'd known some of these things upfront. Unfortunately, no one told me about those things..
#I have 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 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. Because if you don't know how to do this when you quit your job, you'll be screwed..
# 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.
Sure, the real art is to not stagnate, to stay hungry when you get a paycheck. That's the biggest threat when you get a paycheck at the end of each month. You'll get comfortable. And being comfortable is the enemy of innovation. Of creativity. And the hustle.
Still, everything is so much easier when you get a paycheck at the end of each month..
# I have never experienced real 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.
That's why you should try to get used to failure and making mistakes while you still have a job. While you still have that safety net. Experiment, tweak and be courageous. Be that guy. Be that gal who does everything everybody else is afraid of.
You don't have anything to lose anyway. You want to quit your job. You might as well learn something before you quit.
The thing is that 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 very, very tough. 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.
# I have no clue about how to network
When you have a real job you don't have to network. All you have to do is go for lunch with the same people over and over again and you're all set. Maybe the occasional meeting with someone outside your department.
Needless to say that when I quit my job I didn't have a network. And I didn't have a clue about how to properly network. So I had to learn all of this after I quit my job. It's so much easier to do it while you still have a job.
While you can tell people what exactly you're doing. While your company is your credibility. It's so much harder to build credibility when you don't have a job. Not to say impossible. Unless you live in Silicon Valley..
# Exposure is everything
Exposure is the currency of the 21st century. If you have an audience and can expose people to that audience, you'll be able to get in touch with almost anyone. If you don't have an audience, if you can't offer exposure, be it to your audience, your company's CEO or whatever you're screwed. Everybody who's telling you that you can get in touch with almost anyone just by sending smart messages or writing a smart comment is BSing you.
The only thing that matters is exposure. That's also THE way to network in the 21st century. By offering people exposure in exchange for the stuff you want from them. So make sure that you're working on building your audience BEFORE you quit your job. I didn't do that and had to spend a lot of time doing that after I quit my job. I could easily have done that while I still had a job..
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Yann Girard: "You need these 14 micro skills to survive the 21st century!" The world is changing. Faster than ever before. What worked yesterday might not work anymore tomorrow. But some things will always work. No matter how many robots are out there. Or how many algorithms are replacing our jobs. Learn these 14 micro skills and you'll never have to worry about your future ever again (of course it isn't that easy, but it's a great start.) You can download a free report where I discuss these skills below. Click here to claim your copy now (it's free, for now)... |
# 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. Even some of the best artists out there had to send their demotapes to hundreds of record labels. Or upload hundreds of videos to YouTube before they were discovered. It's all about 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.
# It's all about consistency
Whatever you do, the more often you do it, like every day, the better you'll get at it. This is an absolute no brainer. But it took me more than two years to figure it out. Ever since I write every single day, I lose a lot less time because I eliminate all other decisions and questions around it.
Like is the stuff good enough, when should I publish it, what should I write about and so on. If you do it every day, you won't think about all of this useless stuff. You'll just do it. And then you can focus your energy on other stuff.
# Persistence is not the real 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 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.
# There's no overnight success
There's a good story and a real story behind every overnight success. The good story is the one you read about online. The one that sounds like a dream come true. And then there's the real story. Like that story of AirBnB where the founders traveled around the US visiting each and every apartment owner individually to convince them about offering their homes to strangers. For a few years. And then they had to do the same thing with the people they wanted to book nights at those stranger's homes.
# Build your 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, those smart people will never hang out with you.
And if they did, they would lose all of their smarts.
It took me a while to really understand this and what it really meant. Just last year I figured out how to make it work for me. I stopped consuming content, be it blog posts, podcasts or any other type of content and started focusing on three key people.
I only consumed their stuff. This eliminated a lot of conflicting advice that only held me back and I started seeing a lot clearer. I really wish I'd found my online tribe a few years ago already.
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Those were ten things I wish I figured out and knew before I quit my job. There are a lot more. But those were the ten things I could think of right now. And I'm getting really tired now.
So before you quit your job this year, consider taking a second look at this..
[Related: The 14 Micro Skills You Need To Survive The 21st Century]
