How do you start betting on yourself to leave your job? (B-Roll)

Even BEFORE knowing what you are FINALLY going to do.

Do yourself a favor and make a decision:

“Yes - I want to move forward.”

OR

“No - I’d rather stick it out until [new job opportunity / miracle] strikes.”

Do not stay in the smush. Floating around in no man’s land for eternity.

If you find your motivation wavers? That's perfectly okay.

On some days, you are fully gung ho and enthusiastic. Other days you just want to lie under your covers and hide out. This is absolutely no biggie - I can walk you through this.

#1. As long as you MAKE A DECISION. You are already gold.

#2. Start saving a little bit more in your savings account.

Your bonus. Your tax refund. Your vakantiegeld. Your birthday cash from your in-laws.

The goal is to cover X number of months of living expenses to give you some mental space, to take off some mental stress.

For some people, it is 1 year of living expenses. Others is 2 or 3 years.

In my case, I estimated $3,500 x 12 months = $42,000 (€39,600) for a year. That’s my comfort zone for mortgage, daycare, kids’ dance classes, living expenses, medical insurance, costs of running a business, having a car, etc.

Not included: pension, emergency home repairs, funds for my angel investments.

Earmarking $42,000 as a savings goal.

Enter the power of compounding.

Every tiny bit counts. Even if it's a few dollars here. Tens of dollars there.

After all, it’s ALL about making progress. Progress (and money in the bank) compounds over time.

Your bet-on-yourself savings and your bank are cheerleading you on, while reducing mental stress.

The beauty? It does not matter if I never reached my goal.

In fact, that would be ideal. It would mean my new source of income (my new livelihood) could be the forerunner in sustaining my day-to-day living.

Or it would mean I have given up on myself and went back to wistful dreaming -- even before the croupier at the casino dealt the cards.

Which is also perfectly okay.

It would then be time to make a decision again (back to #1).

#3. Start unpacking where you are at today.

Drop the Google search.

Instead, ask your grand self for your opinion and reactions to TWO questions:

A) “What’s the biggest thing in my current industry (or job) that bugs me A LOT?”

“Why wasn’t it what I signed up for?”

“What does it say about me? I get dissatisfied when….”

B) “What’s one label that has been said about my work / me as a professional that stings?”

“Why such a livid (or niggling) reaction?”

“Why get myself so worked up if I know everyone is entitled to their opinion?“

“What do I know about the precociousness of my job?”

Feeling stuck and need an example? DM me “BOOK” and go to Day 16 and 17 of the PDF.

#4. File these great insights into 3 categories.

1. What is centrally important to you becomes your foundation.

What some folks like to call “values”. I think of it as that big sometimes-boring yet always-reliable boulder.

If I needed to make a decision to move forward, my foundation never failed me. Would this decision allow me to live in integrity, help others into self-sufficiency, and make an impact that mattered? Yes, move on. No, tweak or forget it.

1. The things that you learned about yourself paint a picture of your genius, your superpowers. The blend, concoction, and infusion that is so uniquely you.

Try experimenting and seeing how your genius would brilliantly light up on its own based on group settings, circumstances, and your energy level. Versus times, situations, people where you are shut down and nowhere to be found.

1. Your frequent rewinding and playing cassette tape of thought patterns.

Surprisingly, this gave me pointers on how to know myself on a whole new level. To know myself better than my old self did. That work in itself brought me so much more muscle power in making big life decisions.

How wrong can one get if one chooses with full knowing of oneself? Definitely with less self-doubts, less regrets. And less of wasting time and energy chasing the wrong path.

Feeling stuck and need an example? DM me “BOOK” and go to Day 18 of the PDF.

#5. Nudge yourself into the spaces you want to grow, learn and breathe in.

How do you relate with spaces?

Are you one where your environment invigorates you? Or where you prefer to seek out relaxing and calming environments to do your best work?

How do you nudge yourself to the right spaces?

Check in with your supersense — whether it be smell, taste, feeling as physical vibrations, touch, open-eye sight as eye-pleasing visuals, or closed-eye sight as imagined reality. It is your laser-sharp, never-wrong perception that only you would get how to use it.

(Mine is smell. Hence, the name of my venture The Parfum Agency.)

In other words, bring your sensory experience into the conversation.

You can smell the space when you browse a company’s website, when you touch their services, when you see the atmosphere with your own eyes during your interview, when you hear how respectful they are about employee growth.

You can visualize how true they are to their values as they run their supply chain or value chain. You can feel how much creator space they give their employees to make mistakes, fail and make mistakes again. You can use your instincts on the level of passive-aggressiveness, aggressiveness, or inertia a company has.

#6. Gather reactions from others and from yourself.

When you are in the ideal spaces for yourself or when you begin to have an inkling of what you would like to explore:

• Directly say it out loud if you feel the intense urge to start something new and move ahead full steam. This is for those of us who feel like the world needs to catch up with us, to follow our lead.
• Share and check on your reaction on others’ reactions. This is for those of us who love pouring our energies to build and create methodologically step-by-step.
• Ask for feedback and invite the highly-trusted few to share their opinions. This is for those of us who do not relate with the above two.

#7. Unpack your aversity to success.

Beyond imposter syndrome, we all have this uncanny ability to keep ourselves small time and time again.

Do not venture even a hairline away! We fear of not being good enough, of WAY overestimating ourselves. We fear failure and success in equal parts. We fear rejection from our tribe, which would mean imminent death. And guilt and shame.

Best way I found to unpack my aversity to success? Not affirmations, visualization, positive thinking, mantras.

Rather a subconscious route to self-acceptance. It is okay if we are not perfect, if we have made mistakes in the past that have burnt us badly, if we are scared as heck.

Getting that emotional load off your back is a great release. So you can plough ahead whenever you feel ready or the stars are strikingly aligned for you.

Otherwise, you are simply going to move on to the next post on LinkedIn feed and nothing changes.

Nothing happens.

Nada.

#8. Let’s go figure out your product-market fit.

This is when it gets fun.

We get to test and break things, assumptions, old ways of doing things.

We put something out there — congruent to your personal brand — and see how the world reacts.

We tweak, we pivot, we brainstorm behind the scenes.

When the world responds, it either brings you relief that you are heading the right direction (yes, someone would vote on you with their money). Or it shows you are still in the smush of hoarding your true talents and not daring to let the world REALLY see what you bring to the table.

A mix of growth hacking, personal branding, and strategy.

If we are that good, we can even get you your first beta client.

So you may be wondering, how can I maximize this to work in my favor? I am SO glad you asked.

There are proven frameworks and systems we can walk together to accelerate progress and clarity for you. Specifically? #5, #7 and #8. So you not only know which is the direction to start heading to, you can get your product-market fit pat. (The rest you can do pretty much DIY.)

Our work together? All-in 18 hours. DM me “READY” whenever you are ready.

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P.S. This is another of my social experiments (aka my crazy ideas).

I wanted to dive real deep, get into the nitty gritty of how do you start betting on yourself to leave your job. So I start my 100-day series called #betonmyselfseries.

I write this post with what I know -- as of today -- to express on paper. Liken this to my first take, my B-roll for making a movie.

As reactions and comments unfold in the coming 100 days, I will update this post as my A-roll. It may be a completely new article. Or spin off to something else really cool. Or look exactly the same.

You have a hand to shape this over the next 100 days.

Because we are all in this smush together to build better lives for ourselves and our kids — without the misery, stress and grief at our jobs. After all, we are too young to retire. Too old to start afresh.