Welcome Back to episode 39 of Working Towards Our
Purpose and got another episode for you today.
Want to talk about me actually quitting?
But first I want to thank everybody for the
positive feedback on the first episode. It was helpful and
encouraging to me because like I alluded to in the first
episode, these are kind of unedited and
you know, well, they are unedited and just completely raw. So
I did listen back to a little bit of it and I heard a lot
of ums. So I will try to get better with that as time
goes on. But I just did one.
But anyways, yeah, I want to thank you for the support and then also
for the support of my single that came out about a week
ago. And I think that the topic of
the last episode of being more
sort of upfront with what I'm doing and sharing it
has actually led to some results. And I
think, you know, out of the six singles that I've released this year,
that one had the most listened. So kind of an obvious thing,
but I think a difficult thing to do
when you're trying to share something that you created and you can
feel a little self conscious about it or, you know, maybe feel like
you're not good enough. So I do appreciate all that. And if you haven't listened
to it, I'll leave the link in the show notes for this episode.
But little update. I have quit since the
last episode. I did put in my two weeks and I have a handful
of days left. So I
did want to talk a little bit about the process of that because it was
still difficult and it was still hard and I knew that
it was something that I needed to do and I wanted to do.
But it's still just always difficult to quit something
and to sort of make it permanent. Because once
you send your two weeks or once you say you're quitting, you can't really take
that back. So it's kind of the ultimate test of
your decision and what you're believing in. So
to take you back, I think it was two weeks ago
at this point, Friday or something, I don't know, not important. But
I log in in the morning and I request for a meeting
from two of my superiors. And I
waited all day to get a response and nobody
responded to me. And I was kind of getting worried
and being like, oh, maybe I should just do it another week or maybe I
should postpone it. But I didn't do that
and instead I quit via email, which
I didn't really want to do, but I kind of had
no other option because my day was coming to an end
and I hadn't heard any response. So that was the only way
that I saw was the possibility of me putting in my two
weeks. Um, and it was on a Friday. And I was
kind of worried about it all weekend because, you know, you say
something, you, you quit your job, you change, you
know how you're going to move forward, and then there's just no reaction. And
I don't know, you know, what their response is or if they were upset or
not upset. And none of that should care, but. Or none of that
should matter. But I did care. I didn't want to.
I don't know, I guess it's just always sort of maybe old people
pleasing tendencies, but you don't want to make anybody, like, upset
or like, mad at what you're doing. And I think part
of me was looking for a little bit of the approval of, you know, it's
okay that you're doing that. Not sure, but either way,
I went through the whole weekend kind of nervous to log in on Monday.
And then when I did finally log in on Monday, all this
anticipation had built and I was like, really not looking forward to
it. And I log in and the email that
I sent wasn't even responded to. And I just got a simple DM that said
like, or a simple IM that said like,
thanks for all your hard work, we look forward to a smooth
transition, or something like that. And I was like, oh, all right. Well,
that wasn't that bad. So it just kind of this
thing, I guess I built up all weekend. Oh, and I left
one crucial detail out of quitting. So I
said that I sent an IM to try to set
up a meeting. Well, when I first logged in, I was like, really
nervous and I had the IM typed and it took me like an hour and
a half to actually send it. And again, this is something I
knew I wanted to do and I was ready to do
it. But it was just so hard to click the IM because
I guess that felt like the turning point. Like, once I click that I ask
for a meeting, then there's no turning back. And
so I was literally just like sitting, staring at my computer,
like, thinking through, yes, this is what I want to do,
just trying to convince myself. And I was kind of like pacing
and going into the other room and stuff. And I
remember, like, sort of like vaguely asking
for like a sign from the universe or something like that, but then just like
forgetting about it. And then literally, like five minutes later, my
close friend Texted me and was like, hey, like, how's it going?
Are you doing it today? And then to me, that was like, oh,
there's that. Like, okay, this is the right direction. I need to be doing
this. And then as soon as I got that text, I clicked it and sent
the IM and proceeded to not hear back for the rest of the day.
But I don't know, it was a little bit of. I
think that was important because I sort of asked for
something and then got something
as a sign or an indication
that I was moving in the right direction. I do believe
that there's lots of signs out there, and
if you can kind of tune into your intuition, I think there's.
There's always these kind of subtle things that kind of can point you in the
right direction. Um, but I did just want to say that because I think that
that was pretty. It seems almost, like, silly at this point now to talk about
it, but in the moment when it was happening and I was, like, super nervous,
I sort of, like, put that out there and then got a text. And, like,
it was very prominent that, like, I was making the right decision. So
it gave me a lot of ease to be able to, like, actually go through
with the quitting. Um, and, yeah, hopefully that wasn't all
over the place, but. And you followed that. But I also did want to
talk about, like, previous quittings that I've had. Um, I've
gone through a couple quits, I guess, in my career.
Um, notably, the biggest ones were at my
engineering jobs. My first big engineering job.
I remember I wanted to quit because, again, I just. I felt like
I wasn't really being valued. I was more so, like,
kind of bitter at that time. And I, like, I wanted to stick it to
my boss and, like, you know, the sort of I'm going to leave and
they're not going to know what to do sort of attitude. And when
I did actually quit, I learned, like, a really big lesson in
that. And, like, I went to go to my boss office,
I sat down at his desk, I gave him my. This little letter I typed
up, and there was just, like, no response from him. He was just like,
okay, great. And I think
that was very disappointing for me because I
wanted him to, you know, be, like, upset
that I was leaving or something. And,
yeah, it just kind of was not what I was looking for.
But then I kind of learned the lesson of, um, you
can't be quitting to, like, you know, get back at
somebody who didn't treat you well or to make them sort
of like uncomfortable because it's not, it's not going to work like that. Especially with
a big corporation where, you know, they could just fill you
in with another person who's graduating from college.
It wasn't really something that like, probably
cared to him at all. And, you know, just bigger picture, I
shouldn't be acting based off of how I want others to feel.
So luckily for me, I was quitting also for myself. But
that was kind of eye opening that it's never really fun to quit. It's never
really a good feeling. I don't think, at least in my
experience. I've never quit and then felt
good as far as getting back.
I felt good as far as me moving forward and the direction that I meant
to, but not so much as far as like getting back at someone. And I
don't think that's like ever a really good reason to quit.
But the second quit, bigger quit that I had was the
second engineering firm that I worked at. And this was during COVID And
I didn't know how to quit at all because we were working from
home and now it's normal. But like,
at that point I had never, like quit virtually before and I, like, hadn't seen
my boss in months. And I remember
also sending him an IM and being like, hey, can you. Can I call you
real quick about something? And that was super nerve
wracking. I remember like, literally like shaking my hands were
shaking a little bit because I was like so nervous to quit. But
in that instance, it was actually kind of a really nice,
A nice quit because he was very receptive and he was supportive.
And I really did not expect that from him because
I kind of like put him in a box of like, who he was as
a person and just thought he wouldn't understand. And
I was quitting to like go pursue a business and stuff. And I thought he
would have negative, you know, input for that, but. But he was actually really
positive and supportive and. And that was really kind
of surprising to me at the time. But
yeah, just. And again, similar to the quit that I just had.
It was like just complete non.
What's the word? Just like non engaging
that I feel like it's just been like kind of ignored
and acting like maybe it's not happening or something, which is
strange to me. But nonetheless
quitting for my own reasons and not to
get back anybody or anything like that.
Let me just plug my computer in. It's dying. Okay.
So, yeah, I think the moral of
the story is that it's never for me, it's never been
easy to quit or never been fun to quit because I
guess you're always kind of putting somebody at an inconvenience they have to fill your
position and this and that. But
no matter what the reasons are, I think the most important thing is
following the thing that you believe
in and what you think is best for you. And I think it can be
really easy to get stuck in a job. I think this job that I just
quit, I was probably doing for too long after I knew that I
didn't really need to be there
or want to be there or wasn't being helpful for me in my life
anymore. So, yeah, it's never
really easy to quit. And I think that's why it always
seems like such a daunting task. And I've known people
that I've worked with in the past that just felt like they couldn't make
a change at all because they had been there for so long. And
I think that's a part of it, too. Like, the longer that you're there, the
more it's within your routine, and it seems like it's
harder to make a change. But
I don't know. Not sure where I'm going with that. But.
So, yeah, the next thing that I want to talk about, too, is, like, I
was thinking about, like, well, what allowed me to quit this time? Like, what did
I do to make myself quit or to
realize that I did want to quit? And I think it had a lot to
do with the three books that I was reading at the time. And
I was reading these. These three books kind of about various
different topics. The first one here is by an author, Graham
Cochran. It's called Rebel Find Yourself by Not following the
Crowd. And that was a really
great book as far as, like,
talking about, like, not doing things just to kind of fit in with society
and thinking about what it is that you actually want in your
life and how you want to live your life and how to make that
happen. And he had a lot of kind of quick
exercises at the end of the chapter to try to, like, think about
your future life and how you want to be living it. And it
was really helpful for me to, alongside these other two books, to
really know, like, for sure that I
didn't want to be doing this anymore and I need to make a change now.
The second book was the Artist's Way, which is
a book about creativity and how you can get
back to your creativity if you're someone who was
creative. Maybe when you were younger and kind of decided
that artistic endeavors weren't important or maybe they
don't pay you. So you kind of stopped doing them. And it was
really, it's kind of a like a set UP
as a 12 week program. You're supposed to like read a chapter a week for
12 weeks and by the end of it you're supposed to sort of be
transformed into thinking of yourself as an artist again
and being able to do creative things. And
there's a lot of exercises in that book too. I did not do all of
them, but the ones that I did do were
super helpful. And there was two sort of
exercises that, that I'm going to continue to keep doing.
One of them is called Morning Pages, which is kind of just journaling when you
get up to kind of get everything out of your head and all the negativity
out of your head and to start to hear what your
subconscious is saying by just.
They basically want you to write three full pages every morning,
which is a lot handwriting. But I found
it really helpful to like get through the negative stuff and
like discard all the stuff that's negative and not helpful. And then to
start to think about like, well, what do I want? Or what are these
inklings that I maybe ignore a lot of the times.
So that is been really helpful as far as like thinking about
how I wanted to quit and you know, I would like be a
page in and then I would start to think about like well what, what is
it that I want to do? What do I want to use with my energy
and time? And is this job that I'm working now supportive
of that or not? Um, so it, it was really helpful in that.
Um, and then the other helpful thing was
called the artist date, which is basically like you take
yourself on a date somewhere once a week and kind of just allow yourself to
be playful and like free
and to, you know, the, the point of it is to try to like
allow yourself to have fun and be
enjoying of the moment. So then you can be used to doing
that. Because I think, well, you know, as Julia the author says,
yeah, the Artist Ways is by Julia Cameron and
she mentioned that like a lot of times you just don't even think that like
you can kind of deserve that. So just taking like a
short and it doesn't have to be like a restaurant or anything, it could just
be like in the park, something that's free, a coffee
shop, but, but going and kind of like having some time for
yourself to really again bring out who you are as
A person and where you want to go and spend your time and energy.
And then the last book, which was like, life changing
for me almost. And I don't mean to
sound dramatic, but it was like, a really awesome book for me. It's called the
Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And
there's just some really powerful ideas in there
that I won't talk about. All the ones in this episode, I
think I'll probably have specific episodes on those topics.
But yeah, it was a really, really good book about, like,
envisioning who I am as a person, who I
want to be, what I'm good at, what I want to
be contributing to society and to others, and
how I can use my talents and
excel in that instead of, like, fighting against the things that
maybe I think I should be doing. So in combination
to. To bring all those three books together, I was reading them all at once
and kind of doing these exercises and thinking about, like, what I want to be
doing. And it kind of gave me this
idea or path or direction of
what I want to be doing and where I
want to go and who I want to help. And
slowly but surely I'm kind of like forming this idea and I'm not going to
share at this second, but.
Well, maybe I will. What the heck? I think
articulating it and talking about it probably will help to formulize. To
formula. Formula. Formulate. That's the word, Formulate
it a little bit better. But, yeah, I think
finding my past experiences and
the things that maybe I'm good at and being
creative and thinking about how I want to
work in the future and how I want to help people. I
think the direction that I'm moving in is kind of the idea of
this podcast really is to
help people move in a direction
that they're kind of called to or are meant to do, or,
you know, their purpose in life
and to think about, like, basically helping a previous
version of myself. Like when I was in my
engineering career, I was just confused and I had this feeling of I
wanted to do more, but I didn't know what to do with it and I
didn't know what it meant. And I was just
really frustrated all the time. And then I found this business
idea and I put everything into that and it didn't quite work out.
And just a lot of learning lessons along the way. And I think that, like,
if I. If I were to, like, choose who I want to help, I want
to help people who are in that situation where they're
confused, but they want more, but they aren't quite sure how to get
there. I think I want to help people to be able to live in
their purpose, because to me, that's purposeful. If I can
help somebody do what they're meant to do. And I think that just has,
like, a butterfly effect on positively impacting the world.
And I think positivity is a big thing for me, like,
trying not to play into negativity and creating
positivity and encouragement and, yeah, I don't
know, I think moving in that direction. Not quite
sure how that's going to work out as far as, like,
logistically or, like, how to monetize or whatever.
I guess coaching is, like, the first thing that comes to mind, but I kind
of have a weird feeling about that word, coaching,
because I don't think that, like, I know better than anybody, but I would like
to be able to encourage people to believe in themselves. That's. That's, like, the thing
that I want to do. So not quite sure
what that is yet, but
investing into learning more about
these topics and reading these kinds of books and investing into this
podcast. I have committed, or yeah, I guess I have committed to
releasing an episode a week and just fully investing into
that and seeing where it goes. And,
yeah, if that made any sense, if you're still following along with me,
that's kind of the idea that I'm chasing at this point. And
with also, you know, there's other endeavors that I'm investing into, like my
music. I also have a business, a farmer's
market business that maybe I'll talk about that I'm doing with a friend.
And yeah, all right, now I
got to conclude this episode, so didn't expect to go there, but I did
anyways, and in the sake of
being forthcoming and vulnerable.
So, yeah, I think getting back to what I was trying to say was like,
what got me to quit, because I think, you know, that's an important
thing. Like, people maybe know they want to quit, but how do you do it?
And I think these. These three books were just really encouraging
for me to be able to think of what my life.
What I want my life to be, and knowing that this thing that I'm doing
right now is not supporting that. So then it becomes
easier to do it. It's like, okay, this isn't supporting future
me. So future me is not really going to care about this, you know, in
a couple months from now. So I need to just separate myself and
free up all that energy that I'm putting towards it.
And then the biggest thing, too, I think, to put a
little bit more tangible, you know,
reasoning behind this, I think, too. Another thing that I've been thinking a lot about
is values. And, like, what
are my values? What values do
I want to live by? And it came
from one of the books. I can't remember quite which one yet, but.
And that's kind of what. What the.
The reason is that, like, I'm not fitting in at this job,
right? It's not like they're. It's not like the company's
a bad company or there's bad people. It's just a
misalignment of values. The values that they have and the values that I
have are completely different. So we're never going to be happy.
We're never going to be able to really get along
without butting heads or have the resistance.
And I think that thinking about that really
made it make sense to me in my head
to think about what my values are and to be like, okay, these values are
very different from the values of this person that I'm working for. So
that kind of helped make it a little bit easier for me to quit, too.
So, yeah, I just wanted to state that and to
maybe encourage you to think about your values and what are your values,
and I think it's really important to think about
those. And it's really hard. Like, I tried writing my
values down, what they were, and it's hard to just, like,
say what they are like, because you have them in your head, but it's hard
to actually do that. So I think
I'll keep working on mine and try to refine them more.
And to just be thinking about them, I think, is also a positive thing
as far as, like, living a life that's aligned with your values. Um,
but. But yeah, hopefully. Hopefully that all made
sense, and maybe that was helpful for some of you.
But in conclusion, for this episode,
I did just want to talk about the quitting
process and mostly say that it was also. It was
still. It was, like, hard. It was not easy to do,
to try to empathize with maybe somebody who's
been. Who wants to quit a job and feels like it's impossible.
I think it's always gonna be hard, a hard thing, but in the
end, it's always a good feeling. Like, I've gotten a lot of
signs that have
kind of shown me that, like, this was the right decision. So that's been helpful
and encouraging and, yeah, just really excited to keep
doing more of what I want to be doing and
investing into this new idea and investing into this podcast.
So, yeah, I will
be writing reviews about these three books because I think that they're really
helpful. And I will be posting them on the website and
workingtowardsthurpurpose.com and I will also be posting them on Substack,
also investing more into my writing these days. And
you can find that on substack. Com
if you've never used the platform before. It's kind of like a
blogging site that's also like a newsletter. So you can, like subscribe to
people and when they write a new blog, you get a newsletter email.
So I think I'll be doing some book reviews on that too,
for books that, like, are really impactful for me. And I'm working on those
three right now. And when they're posted, you can find them there.
And I will leave a link for my substack in the show
notes also, so if you're interested, you can click it and
yeah, I think that's all I got for today. Did feel a little all over
the place and chaotic, but hopefully it makes sense
because once again, I will not be editing. So I will see
you on a next episode real soon. I hope you all
have a great week. Thanks,
Sam.