Exactly one year ago on this day, March 31st, I decided to quit my well-paying corporate job at a large IT research & advisory firm. I remember it vividly because I felt like shit â stuck in a life that I never wanted.
Having a job is like having a relationship. There are two camps of people.
- People who say that Mr. Right doesnât exist â thereâs only Mr. Right Now.
- And then there are the romantics who believe in true and unconditional love. Love where there is no hate involvedâ ever.
Iâm number 2. I wasnât really in love with my job. It was okay â she had good looks, took care of me, and made sure I wasnât alone. So I said: Letâs give it a try.
But that wasnât a good idea. My real love is entrepreneurship, but we broke up. After years of struggling as an entrepreneur and never finding my stride, I finally gave up in 2014 and got me a corporate job.
But that didnât come easy. All my life Iâve been an entrepreneur. It all started when I was 13 years and sold bootleg CDs to my classmates. And in the years after that, I always had something to sell or a way to provide value.
But because I went to university and got a masterâs degree in business, I felt some sort of pressure to get a ârealâ job. Also, I tried lots of things and mostly, I failed over and over again. Itâs not easy being an entrepreneur or a freelancer.
Even though entrepreneurship gets a lot of attention these days, the large majority of people are still employees. Not everyone is an entrepreneur, and second, a lot of people donât even try because of dogma.
You have your shit together when you have a real job so you can get a mortgage and buy a houseâplus all the other shenanigans people believe in like owning a station wagon and a labrador. Thatâs the definition of âsuccessâ in most culturesânot a struggling entrepreneur, freelancer, or artist.
If you are self-employed, you know this question: âAre you doing that full time?â Idiots.
But the truth is that most people have jobsâso thatâs the standard. Research shows that in 2015, 310 out of 100,000 adults started a new business each month.
Thatâs 0.31%! Donât believe the hype that everyone is starting a business, or should.
I like how Gary Vaynerchuk talks about entrepreneurship. He believes that itâs in your DNA.
If youâre an entrepreneur, working for someone else is out of the questionâ it feels like someoneâs suffocating you.
And thatâs exactly how I felt.
I wanted to break up with my safe and warm relationship and go back to the uncertainty.
But this time, I was determined to make it work as an entrepreneur â Iâd saved up enough money to pay for my living expenses for at least a full year. That was enough for me to take the plunge and never look back.
Thatâs the decision that shapes my life from now on. One year later I can say that it wasnât easy and that it took me four months to make some money, but Iâm glad I made the decision.
Before âthe decisionâ I was aimless, living on autopilot, listening to other people. But now I know I have only one thing to do.
Whatâs the decision that changed your life? Thereâs a chance that you know what you have to do, but youâre putting it off (like I did for years). Or, maybe you donât know what that is yet.
Society tends to focus on larger than life characters and worships themâthey become the heroes of society. Compare the normal personâs life to Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and you come to the conclusion that youâre a nobody. Thatâs bullshit. You donât have to change the world as historical figures have done.
For us, mortals, itâs more important to decide what our life is about. That can be anything.
Recently I ran into a girl who I went to school with. She said that she dedicated her life to her religion as a missionary. She made a conscious decision to do that. And she understands that it comes with sacrifices.
My mother decided to become the best mother possible when she got pregnant. That decision also came with sacrifices. And from personal experience, I can tell that she is the best mother possible.
I come across many people who donât get this concept. When they hear things like lifeâs mission, passion, or whatever term that people like to use, they start thinking about those âheroes of society.â
We compare ourselves to them, and say: âThatâs not me.â
Itâs either that or some of us think all of this âlife-talkâ is nonsense (if thatâs you, go back to watching Game of Thrones).
Think whatever you want â hereâs a question for you: What are you?
Iâm not talking about your job title. Whatâs your life about?
Thatâs an answer that most of us donât have. We overcomplicated things. But itâs actually very simple.
If you donât know; decide what you are.
Will Smith put it best:
âJust decide what itâs going to be, who youâre going to be, how youâre going to do it.â
Decide. Go out. Do it. And donât look back.