How to quit your job and trust the instincts of your hidden cool

10 questions to ask yourself, making sure that you are not satisfied with your career and life.

One morning in 2006, I woke up with a numb right foot. There was no pain - just another strange symptom in the piggy bank of those symptoms that have surprised my doctors for years. I went to a therapist who sent me on an MRI, and the results were not long in coming. Multiple brain and spinal injuries. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
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The diagnosis brought some relief. I found out what was causing all these strange symptoms (and that I am not a hypochondriac). At the same time, the diagnosis made me concentrate on life goals and the future. I learned that I would most likely live less and worse than most people, and this prompted me to look for a purpose in life.

I started visiting groups of patients with multiple sclerosis and met people at different stages of the disease. Then I realized that my future was worse than I imagined. The disease does not affect one person, but entire families — while they watch their loved ones begin to lose their opportunities. I firmly decided to do two things: maximize the chances of remaining viable as long as possible, by acquiring good habits, happiness and good medical care; and achieve my goals and dreams as quickly as possible while you still have the opportunity.


John Foxton, author of the article

Like most people, I often went off this path. But the more I thought about my situation, the more I was grateful to such a test. I realized that in principle all people are exposed to him. No one knows when health fails. No one knows at what point our goals and dreams will become unattainable due to accidents, loss of opportunity or death.

The problem is that I did not know what I was dreaming about. What unique opportunity could I use to change the world for the better? Theoretically, there were many opportunities, but none of them seemed appropriate. Nothing seemed to make me truly happy.

Ten years of rushing to different high positions in various corporations took me to realize that I could not find my purpose there. And only by making a bold, even irresponsible decision to quit my job without any prospects for the future, I was able to establish a unique opportunity that I can offer the world.

Resigning from work without further prospects - this was one of the best feelings I experienced. I was happy and joyfully excited, but at the same time, more than before, I wanted to achieve success. It was necessary for me to provide for myself. Through this discovery process, I realized that my dream was obvious: to help other creative people find their hidden cool, push them to success and see how they shine. And today I work at FOOD-X on this, and I could not be happier and have more honor.

In the process, I gathered a few basic questions that you should ask yourself if you are not satisfied with your career or life.

1. What would I like to achieve in life, thinking about it on the last day of my only life on Earth?

It sounds somehow pathologically, but in reality it is not. In general, this is the most important question of all. I ask it myself every day. And I always answer the same way: I want to know that I moved forward, followed my dreams and improved something important. Or, at least, applied to this all the forces.

If you ask hospice nurses what people on their deathbed feel sorry for, more often it would be “I wish I had the courage to live life according to my true desires, and not the kind of life that others expected of me.” How great that life provides an opportunity to avoid these regrets. In other words, "health gives us the freedom that few people realize until they lose it."

If you think these reflections have a positive effect on morality. Allow yourself to imagine that by the last day of your life you had fulfilled your hopes and dreams.

2. Does my employer help me get closer to my dreams?

It is easy to get stuck in a situation of mutual dependence with the corporation. A lot of people get stuck in it because it seems like something “right.” Corporate life is a responsible thing. In a way that provides a permanent salary, medical insurance and salary increase over the years, if you behave yourself. But rather quickly you begin to feel like a cog in a huge machine, moving towards someone else’s dreams. You spend most of your life reaching other people's goals, because you think that this is “right.” You lose your passion for work, but do not move away from the machine, because you believe that all this will somehow pay off in the future. And this future comes only for units.

3. What can I do well?

If you figure out how to make money from what you do well, you will be happy doing it.

The problem is to understand what you are doing well. This can be a very difficult task. Everyone has such opportunities, but many can not find them. They may be forgotten or suffer from long downtime. But if you find this opportunity, you will have a chance to get to the point of intersection of skills, productivity and happiness.

To discover this opportunity, you need to think about it well. You will need to discard prejudice and prejudice. Some obvious things can dangle in your thoughts - do not be satisfied with the first thing that comes to mind. And do not stop at the "responsible" choice. Meditate.

When you find a candidate for a unique opportunity - check it out. Work on a voluntary basis and see how it goes. Get first-hand experience before rushing into it with your head. You may have to quit your main job.

Ask your friends and colleagues to describe this ability. Do not think that this is some kind of narcissism. It is a step to becoming a happy and productive person. Ask - and be surprised how much people are ready to help you and go forward.

How do I know that you found it? You will learn because you feel "right." Active work in this direction will seem natural, interesting and productive. You could already guess about this while reading this article.

4. What makes me passion?

Some people have an easy answer to this, but most don't. Information that flows into us every day through all the available openings floods our passion and changes it into those things that you supposedly worry about.

Ask yourself:

- what activities really interest you and make you happy?
- what topics for discussion are you keen on? what topics can you talk all day?
- what comes to mind in the subway, or in moments of insomnia, in the shower?
- What do you automatically start to do in your free time?

Write it all down. You may well get an answer.

5. Are my abilities and interests helpful?

If you live in the United States, especially in New York, Los Angeles - here you will find the market for almost any kind of activity. There are some simple rules by which you can understand whether you can earn on what you can do and what you are interested in:

- Do many people want what you can offer?
- Is it possible to think how to make it easier, cheaper, better or more convenient than it is accepted?
- Is it possible to assemble a team for this case?
- Will your family and friends help you?

If your dreams and capabilities fit this description, you can start your own business and make money on it.

6. Is this my destination?

As Steve Jobs said: “Everything around what you call life was made by people not smarter than you, and you can change it, influence it, make yourself those things that others will use. When you understand this, you change forever. ”

And it is. Go your way. Look around. People are not smarter than you have opened many prosperous cases in various fields. Why don't you do it?

7. But how can I make money on my fashionable life?

As one wise man said: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I saw this on my way. While working at various corporations, I had dreams of a better life. But these were only dreams, until I quit and put myself in a situation where I needed to find my unique abilities and passion in order to earn.

As a result, you almost do not lose what gives you a predictable salary. You will get access to a more valuable and nutritious source: your happiness and a feeling of fullness of life on the path of following your dreams. And you will understand that you do not need so much money for happiness. If you are lucky, and your dreams will be in demand in the market, you can get much more than you could offer in other companies. And then you can, at will, experience happiness by helping other dreamers to fulfill their dreams.

8. But what if I fall? If in a way I will be lost? ..

You can fail. So what? Most entrepreneurs are serial losers. If you look at the success story of the most fortunate ones, you will see that only the last of a series of their projects was a success.

This is a cliché - but failures are our lessons. You can learn exactly what you need to regroup and take the right step. Or that you have not fully understood what your unique opportunity is. But you know yourselves better, and you will not die, regretting that you did not respect yourself enough to try to follow your dream.

9. Can I do it alone?

Never. None of the super lucky people can say that they have achieved their goals alone. Everyone needs help. Even Jobs had a Woz, an investor and a spiritual mentor. The 300 SOSV Venture Fund investment data suggests that a meager number of companies with one founder achieve success, because you need a whole set of different types of thinking and experience to make the idea work.

I was assisted by various people — colleagues, family, friends, former managers, and Shen Tong, who gave me the opportunity to become part of FOOD-X and SOSV, for which I am eternally grateful. But this help would not have happened until I myself would accept it, and would not have quit first from my previous job.

10. When to start?

Most likely, you already have something to start chasing your dream. Only unrequited loyalty to your employer and unsupported fears of failure stop you. Do not deprive yourself of one of the best feelings that life can offer you: leave from work that does not satisfy you, start all over again and follow your dreams.