Before quitting your job, three rules.

Just about everyone I know has, at some point in their career, left a job to take advantage of a better opportunity, one with a bigger title, better pay, or whatever else is inducing a departure.?Some people exit by choice, others by necessity.?I am among them, doing my share of transitioning from one job to the next, given I’ve never stayed in a position longer than six years, the only exception being my current one, working for myself.

As a coach specializing in?job search, I have advised any number of people who have one foot out the career door, offering three obvious but often overlooked pieces of advice:

Don’t leave angry.?Under-compensated and feeling unappreciated, I was pissed off when I walked out the?Digitas?door, and made my displeasure known to everyone, including my boss, founder Michael Bronner.?To this day I regret it, but there are no do-overs.?If there were, I would have left on better terms.

Whatever the circumstances of your departure – even if you’re terminated – I suggest you leave with grace, understanding that down the road, your path might well cross with a colleague or boss.

An email or text goodbye won’t do here; even a phone call feels exactly like that, a phone-it-in moment, suggesting you’ve already checked out, something to avoid (even if this might be the truth).?

The only way to do this well is say goodbye?in-person, stopping by the offices or desks of colleagues, subordinates, superiors, and work friends. When a face-to-face goodbye is not possible, a handwritten note serves as an appropriate, second-best substitute.

Don’t trade one disappointment for another.?Desperate to be hired in the wake of the dot-comb bust of the early aughts, I took a job as CEO of?Rapp?New York.?A far cry from my last agency position at?Ammirati Puris Lintas?– a superb agency in every respect –?Rapp?was a big mistake, the only position in a long career where I was (mercifully) fired.?

Some people escape to the first job offer that comes their way, only to subsequently realize all they’ve done is trade one set of problems for another. Am I one of those people??I am.

Decisions made in haste, anger, or need rarely work out.?Don’t be too quick to abandon ship; instead, wait for an opportunity that feels right, seeking a position where you work with people you respect and can learn from, on assignments that challenge you to perform at your best.

Don’t assume your next job will look like the one you left.??How does the title “Founder” sound to you?

With most of the older clients I work with, their first thought is to replace the job they left with one another one like it.?If you are one of those “people of a certain age,” by all means take that road. At the same time, I suggest you pursue a parallel path, deploying your experience, skills, and knowledge working for yourself, not someone else.?

This is what I did when I?founded?Solomon Strategic; I didn’t have to leave, I chose to, discovering there is nothing more gratifying, invigorating, and terrifying than launching a business.?

Looking back, was it the right decision??It was.

I ask many of my clients to imagine what a second chapter in their professional lives might look like, then think about converting what feels at first like an unachievable dream into concrete action. I had one client, for example, who thought he would pursue a position with a new company, pretty much replicating what he did before.?

I encouraged him to think more broadly, redefining opportunity in what was for him a new and different way.?He wound up as a college professor and book author.?Is he happy being independent, working for himself rather than for a company paycheck??Yes.

What to do next.?By choice or necessity, if you think it’s time to evaluate career options and you could use some help, it costs?absolutely nothing?to invest an hour to determine how I can help.?I’ve been there.?I know.

?If this describes you, feel free to reach out at [email protected].??We’ll talk.