I'm Quitting My Job in 4 Years
Or thereabouts.
The other day I was enjoying a nice shot of espresso, and it hit me like a sack of hammers.
I’m going to quit my job
“Heck yeah! Freedom! I can do whatever I want!” Long walks with the dog and quiet evenings on the porch as the golden sunset glints off my silver hair.
Then a wave of norepinephrine shot from my adrenals, and my heart rate spiked with that anxious feeling typically reserved for asking the girl out to prom.
“Oh, shit.”
It wasn’t curl-up-in-a-fetal-position anxiety, and it faded after a few minutes. Four years is a long time, after all. But what the heck?
I’ve dealt with anxiety my entire adult life, and an episode can be a clue about something going on in one’s life beneath the surface. Finding it involves hunting for the trigger, and journaling helps.
It took some writing, but I eventually figured it out.
And the trigger wasn’t what you might expect.
I ordered another espresso
A Porsche purred past the open garage door of the coffee shop I was sitting in. I set aside the manuscript I was working on and scribbled some notes in my journal.
What accounted for the panic?
It wasn’t money. Fortunately, Jill and I are on track financially. While my career has not been tech-bro exit-lucrative (I don’t own any fleece vests), my job as a technology executive has been good to me. We don’t have Porsche money, but we also don’t have to worry about old age.
So what the heck? Why the anxiety.
I kept jotting.
Let’s go back in time
Have you ever wanted to do something so badly that you think about it for thirty years, but you don’t take action? Something entrepreneurial that might lead to financial and location freedom? Maybe something purposeful in a field you’re passionate about? How about something creative?
Build wells in Kenya? Start a landscape architecture business?
Maybe it’s not practical. Maybe it requires skills you don’t have. Maybe your depression-era grandfather told you to be an accountant so you’d always have a job (no AI back then, lol). Maybe you have mouths to feed or aging parents to think about. Maybe you’re supporting a wife who is on her own entrepreneurial journey. Or perhaps you just really like your job (ahem).
So you wait.
I’ve thought about this A LOT
Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed about becoming a novelist.
Once I finally got started, it took me a decade to learn the trade, but I’m about to publish my eighth novel. I love crafting stories, and writing is the only time I feel “flow.” One of my books made the Amazon bestseller list. Positive reviews on all of them. An inbox full of readers begging for the next one. A robust email list. For ten years, I built my side-hustle fiction business so that when I leave my day job I could write fiction full time.
So, then it’s pretty simple, right? Keep writing books for the next four years so I can go “full-time fiction writer” when I quit my job.
The anxiety panged again.
Have you ever tried making money writing fiction?
As an indie author with a day job, it takes a year to hand-write, edit, and publish a novel that sells for $5.00 on Amazon and competes with AI slop for eyeballs. I get $3.50 after Bezos takes his cut. The only way to find eyeballs on Amazon is to pay for advertising. In the early days, Amazon’s disintermediation of the fiction industry was beneficial to new writers looking for an audience. Now, that same disintermediation allows anyone with a $20 ChatGPT account to make and publish a book.
Traditional publishing isn’t better. If you’re lucky enough to sell your book to a publisher, you’ve got two years before you see it in print and you still have to do your own marketing. The vast majority of those novels will sell on average 3,000 copies over the author’s lifetime, and the author makes roughly $3K to $5K on those sales.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a bitter writer pining for the old days. I’m just calling it how I see it.
It’s very difficult to make a good living as a fiction author.
But wait, I thought you said you were on track financially. So why not retire and write books?
When I started writing, I did it with the goal of creating a business AND writing fiction. I nailed the latter, missed on the former.
I have no desire to retire. Starting a business is an itch that I haven’t scratched yet. I have a lot left to give.
Writing fiction isn’t enough. Maybe when I’m 80, I’ll enjoy long days of writing while my dog snoozes at my feet.
Until then, I want more.
You probably know about Ikigai
It’s the Japanese concept that roughly translates to “reason for being”, aka purpose. It’s a construct that can help you find your purpose.
Fiction writing:
What you love. Check.
What you are good at. Check.
What the world needs. Maybe.
What you can be paid for. Hmmm….
You see, the reason I started writing so long ago is that I thought I had discovered a way to combine my passion for storytelling with a way to start a business. Self-publishing made it possible to combine entrepreneurship with a creative endeavor.
What you can be paid for
Except I missed on the business side. I whiffed.
Sure, I’ve sold a lot of books. Almost 200,000 of the little suckers. Over ten years.
To make $10,000 per month, I’d have to sell 2,857 copies at a $3.50 commission. That’s gross. Assuming I have a 20% profit margin after editing, cover designs, technology costs, advertising, and taxes, I’d have to sell about 14,286 books a month to clear $10,000 in profit.
Thats a significant scale up.
You can do it!
Probably.
But is it my purpose?
Another pang of anxiety.
That’s it. I figured it out.
The oh-shit moment.
The Ikigai model doesn’t lie. I love writing fiction, I’m good at it. But does the world need it? And can I get paid for it?
I’m unsure if this will be my reason for being.
When I quit, what will my purpose be?
Pang.
The power of purpose
I know my current purpose. Go to work and bring home the paycheck. Pay the mortgage. Save for old age. Support Jill’s growing business. Support my mother. It helps that I love my job. I mean, truly, I’m grateful for the opportunity to do what I do, where I do it, and that I get to do it with my friends.
But only four more ski seasons until I quit. Or thereabouts.
When I quit, what will my purpose be?
I’m not interested in retirement. Friends of ours just bought a place in Scottsdale and joined a golf club. Good on them, they’ve earned it.
I have a different itch.
How can I spend the next decade or two on work that is meaningful, where I wake up every morning energized to make something, build something, contribute something, fix something, help someone, solve someone’s problems?
Luckily, I have four more ski seasons to figure it out. Or thereabouts.
The anxiety dissipated
Now that I know the question, I found the source of the anxiety.
Now that I know the source, I can fix it.
That’s how battling anxiety works.
Welcome to Second Story
It’s a newsletter about discovering and starting the next thing.
It’s about finding purpose.
My first life story was Technology with a Fiction Writing Subplot.
I don’t know what my second story will be. Yet.
I do know that I discover and learn things about myself and about the world through writing.
Writing is tattooed on my arm.
I’m still writing fiction. Ghosts of Mendoza comes out in December.
I’m writing this channel for myself. It’s a discovery tool.
Maybe you’ll like the notes and letters, and maybe you’ll get something out of it.
I hope so.
If you’re interested, please subscribe.
If not, that’s cool too. Maybe I’ll see you in the next one.
1,293 days to go. Thanks for reading. :-)