The day I walked out of my corporate gig, I wasn’t thinking about the money I’d be losing. I was way past that. I wasn’t thinking about the work friendships that might fade, and I wasn’t even thinking about how the team that chronically failed to appreciate my hard work would get a rude awakening soon. My eyes, focus and stride were all forward. I was happy.
My type-A, over-calculating-every-risk self was taking a leap, a huge risk, and in some people’s eyes, making a mistake. They couldn’t see what I was seeing. I was reaching out and touching my purpose. I was racing full speed toward my dreams. Although Shonda Rhimes profoundly said in her Dartmouth commencement speech, “Ditch the dream and be a doer, not a dreamer,” all I could think was it was the dream that had been a catalyst to my action. It was the passion for the dream that turned me into a doer. The passion for dream said I didn’t have to settle for this corporate gig. The dream told me that if I became a doer as well, it might just come true.
It’s not as though I wasn’t already a doer — I was just a doer for someone else’s dream full-time and a doer for my dream part-time. I would work 40+ hours in tech, making good money (but having no passion for what I was doing), and as soon as I clocked out, I would work on writing, recording, business strategy, branding, etc. I managed to publish a book and release an album while working this full-time job, and though the money made it easier to produce the physical product, it didn’t allow me the time to really polish the product and strategize around the overall brand and plan for my business. Opportunities were missed. I was a doer, I just wasn’t doing enough for me.
So, I quit.
Okay, I didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Forget this.” What I actually thought was, “How do I get out of this? How do I reach my next level?” Education was my way out, forward and up. I applied to my dream school and got rejected. Talk about a wrench in the plan! One part of Shonda’s speech where we agree is when she daid, “You just have to keep moving forward. You just have to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity, staying open…” So, I worked hard for a year, applied for more creative jobs at the corporate gig to no avail, and then reapplied to my dream school.
I was accepted.
The welcome packet listed the cost of tuition as a few thousand dollars more per year than I was making at my “well paying” corporate gig, but I didn’t flinch. I was being a dreamer and a doer, following my passion and purpose over the pursuit of money, and that tuition would be paid come fall. Through hard work, family assistance, crowdfunding, loans and a corporate giving scholarship, I was able to pay my tuition for the first year.
Yes, it took all of that, and then the corporate checks stopped. I was on an extremely limited budget, living in a very small space across the country from all of my friends and family. Comfort was the sacrifice I was making to become a full-time doer in pursuit of my dream. That daily cup of Starbucks was gone, popping my head into my mom’s room to bug her was gone, weekend brunch on the lake with friends was gone, and I felt as though I was standing on the edge of a cliff. I was close to broke and in a strange place, but the air had never felt so clean.
Returning home for summer, the frequent comments were that I looked younger and happier, and I was. The security and comfort of a corporate job had allowed me to attach myself to titles I had grown up thinking I should aspire to attain. Relinquishing that to think bigger allowed me to open up to goals, aspirations, lessons and even people I’d never considered a part of my life journey.
I’m not going to tell you that I never had any doubt, any fear, or that I was never lonely.
That would be a lie. I will tell you that the bigger truth and the more important one to me is that I have no regrets about my decision. I walked out of that job, and I haven’t looked back. When you find your purpose and make the decision that it’s worth pursuing, that passion is like the most beautiful sunrise. You can’t take your eyes off of it. You’re trying to take a million photos of it, but its colors keep getting brighter, clearer and more magnificent. Finally, you give up and just enjoy the experience because you know that tomorrow, if you keep moving forward, the sun will rise again.
