Leaving Your Job to Chase Your Dream (or Nightmare)

Tips On Making a Career Change

🚆The One Train Method

Everyone has a career they dream of. There are two problems:
1) How do you get there?

2) How do you know if you’ll like it or not?

The one train method is you are on a train. You have a vision for what you want, you jump off the train into the unknown. There will never be the “perfect” time to do this. Just do it.

This method is great if you are willing to take the risk & have the money, drop what you’re doing and go chase your dream. Or maybe you don’t have the money and you just want your life to be “a movie someone would want to watch.” These are always the best stories. They don’t always have happy endings but they are always interesting.

The other thing about this method is this that its often not irreversible. I was listening to the MFM podcast about Dana White who runs the UFC. He started as a bellhop (not exactly his passion), and left to make his way as a boxing promoter. He figured the worst case was if it didn’t work out he could go back to being a bellhop.

Bezos talks about these kinds of decisions as “two-way” doors. They are safer than “one-way” doors where you can never go back.

🛟The Two Train Method

For those with less risk tolerance, there is the two-train method. Maybe you have a family or some other reason why you can’t leap into the unknown.

This method is starting to pursue your passion as a side hustle. No time? There’s always time. Stop scrolling social media. You don’t need to keep up with the latest episode of every show. It’s more a lack of energy. I find that I don’t run out of time at the end of the day I run out of energy. But if you are chasing a passion this should provide all the energy you need.

Start small. Baby steps. Try to gain knowledge, experience, or better yet, money.

Then when the second train pulls up to speed side-by-side with the first train you are on, you can just casually step off one train and onto the other.

I took this approach when I started Impact Network. I was working full time at Yext & going to NYU at night to get my degree in non-profits. The degree was pretty useless, but it gave me the confidence to then travel to Zambia and start a non-profit on the side while still working full time. At some point when I had enough financial means, I jumped from the Yext train onto the non-profit train as my full time effort.

🔥Train Crash

But what if I end up failing or hating the thing that I jumped into? Yeah that happens. But now you know what you don’t want.

Perfect example is I thought it would be romantic & fun to run a non-profit. What it ended up being is more like a startup that doesn’t have a product or service to make money. It ended up being a sales job to solicit donations year after year just to stay afloat. And if I failed, the kids in Africa would be out on the street education-wise (we ran 10 schools at the time).

So I learned that wasn’t for me.

Same thing with trying to be a teacher in NYC. I took a side hustle to teach after school programs. Luckily the students chewed me up and spit me out before I had a chance to fully jump on that train.

But it’s just as important to learn the truth of what you don’t want because it gets you one step closer to discover what you do.