Focused - 7: Be Like a Duck

Episode Date: October 18, 2016

So you've decided to leave the nest. What can you do to prepare while you're still working for the man? What's the right way to give notice, and prepare for the aftermath? David and Jason discuss getting set up, preparing your loved ones for the change, rehearsing your big break-up speech, and the importance of not panicking when everything goes sideways.

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers, learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm Jason Snell, and I'm joined by my fellow host, Mr. David Sparks. Hi, David. Hi, Jason. We're back for Episode 7.

I guess we're leaving the nest today. Yeah. At first, you know, it's Episode 7. It's like 007. I feel like this is like a special one for us. Oh, that's really good. I hadn't even thought of that because the free agents have a license to leave their jobs. To quit.

Yeah, license to quit. Fantastic. And that's what we're talking about today. Yeah. What happens when you decide that you're going to make the move? We showed some restraint and didn't have this be episode one, but I think it is time to talk about the act of breaking away and sort of what comes along with that. We said this at the top of the first episode, this is not a podcast where our charter is to tell

you to quit your job because the fact is we don't know you and we don't know what your job is like and we don't know what your financial situation is like. And so the last thing, we would be incredibly irresponsible to just say everybody should quit their job and go out on their own. You know that way better than we do. But we can talk about our experiences with it and what the issues are if you decide that this is something that you need to do or if it's sort of decided for you that this is something that's going to happen and you know what your next step is going to be. In fact, those emails you're sending in, we love the emails, by the way, but the emails where you say, hey, love the show. I've decided I'm going to make the move and quit.

Those scare the hell out of me. I'll just tell you. Because there's going to be a dartboard later with our faces on it or the free agents logo. And they're just going to be like, these guys convinced me to do this. This was the beginning of the end. If our information makes you,

inspires you in some way to go out on your own and do something else and start your own business, that's great. But not only for our own conscience sake, it's not right for everybody. But we want to give you the information so you can make good decisions or learn from our mistakes or both, which happens a lot. Yes. And as to launching the business, that's going to be another day, another show. Once you say, okay, I'm starting everything up. But we're just talking now about that weird time between when you say, okay, I'm going to actually do this. And when do you give notice and how do you deal with all that? So why don't we start with that? Once you decide to make

the move, let's assume that you're already working for the man somewhere. What are some things you can be doing in the background? You and I talked for a long time about how we were thinking about doing this. I think stage zero of this is that rumination stage. It is, do I want to do this? Yeah, the part where you may not even be admitting to yourself you're thinking about it. Right, right, exactly. And then like, if I did that, how would I do that? And when would I do that? No, I'm probably not going to do that. And that goes on for a while.

Starts as a seed. It's a seed of discontent, or sometimes it's a seed of excitement about a project or a business or an opportunity that you feel like you can't partake in because of your current job. And you start to think, oh, what if I did that? And then it gets fuzzy, right? Like, I was planning for the possibility of leaving for more than a year, and it was only certain that I was leaving, I would say, for maybe six months of that. So, I was living, I had some duality going on where I was sort of in the middle of like, what are the things that I could do that would be good for me and serve me well if I leave,

get me prepared to leave that are also not sort of forcing my hand? And there's stuff you can do early on like that. In my case, since we talked about this in the workspaces episode, in my case, I didn't have a suitable workspace. And I worked from home in my old job some, too, and from not a suitable workspace. So that was a thing I could do. I could focus on my workspace a little bit and think either this improves my working conditions for my remote work with my existing job or I'm setting up my new independent workspace. So I was able to do it both ways. And those are really, those are the, I wouldn't say easiest, but those are ways you can kind of hedge a little bit and be like, you're inching toward the

departure, but not like fully committing to it yet. So there's, for me, that was a phase of it was what are the things that I would need if I went out on my own that I don't have? And can I get those things before I even leave? Because I felt really strongly that I needed to have the pieces in place so that I wouldn't on day one of my new life say to myself, well, now what? Pete Yeah. I think it's maybe because my Depression-era parents and just being conservative. I think I was planning on leaving for years and making moves, and I never realized I was doing it. Wow. It's just, you know, even like you and I would have our little talks, and I was always the one saying, oh, that's going to be awesome for Jason.

It never really sunk in that I would do it. And then once it happened, once we got to a point at the day job where I'm like, you know, I just need to go do something. And it was within a month or two that I was gone. I mean, it was a very, I think I did it wrong to be honest with you. And part of it is being honest with yourself through the process. And I don't think I was, but today I think I really want to talk about, you know, once you make the decision,

yeah, I want to go, you know, because we can get into navel gazing for a long time. Sure. But you say, okay, I do want to go. And I'm working for the man. What's your opinion on how much you share with the man about what you're doing, like as you're building the stuff up and making the plan? My approach was to share nothing, right? Because I feel like employers want, employers don't like it. Mike mentioned this when we talked to Mike Hurley, they don't even like the idea of a lot of employers that you've got a side project because that, what does that mean? Like, are you not fully committed? And they, employers like to have this fantasy and it

is a fantasy in most cases that the only thing that you're devoted to in terms of being productive at all is them, which is in most cases, not what they're paying for, right? They're paying you for eight hours a day or whatever. And then they expect to have 100% of your mental space. So, for me, the idea there was nothing. And so when I made the decision that I was going to go, you know, I didn't say anything. There was some stuff that I could talk about in the realm of, like I said, plausible, like improving my home workspace. Even then, I didn't really talk about it. Like I didn't, I didn't mention to people at work that I was upgrading my work at home space because I felt like that would be too transparent of I'm also building,

you know, building a place for me to work full time. So I kept it all on the down low that for me as, as much as possible. I think that generally that's the good idea. I think I said with the mic show, my idea was I wanted them to find out about it at my funeral. Honestly, I didn't want them to have any idea of the other stuff I was doing because I knew that, I don't know, it just didn't seem like it would be right. But it depends where you work. I think for some people's locations and the people they're working with, they can be very collaborative. I've even had clients in the past that had employees that were planning moves and my clients were actually actively helping them so they could break out. So, it really depends on the situation. Right. If you've got somebody,

especially if it's not like a big corporation or, well, I guess it really varies even then, if you've got somebody who's really supportive of you, a lot of times, you know, you'll have bosses sometimes who will say, I don't know why you're still doing this. You could do so much more. And that's refreshing when that happens, that they're not trying to push you out. I've been that boss, right? Where I've been very grateful that I've had somebody of the skill level of this, you know, a person who's still in this job because I know that they are incredibly skilled and could do something else. And at some point,

you know, you're really, I think, irresponsible as a manager. You try to just kind of keep them in amber instead of letting them go grow as a professional. So sometimes you will have very supportive people. I think the danger is that the institution that you're working for, if you are working for a large, you know, an institution, or if it's a small business, and the person who's running it, who's your boss is the institution, you know, there are also, in those cases, they don't understand why you would do anything like they're not interested. And I guess that's what it comes down to is, are they interested in you as a person and your professional development and accept the fact that you may be moving on or should move on at some point? Or are they interested in nothing but the business and the moment that you're not committed to it, they're not committed to you? And you should know

which one of those it is, I think. Yeah. If you know they're going to be supportive, then go for it. If you're not sure, then don't take a chance. And just understand that what you're trying to do is kind of a new thing i mean this whole independent worker thing is relatively new most people in big companies have bought into the big company thing the security you know in quotes and the the benefits and the things that come with that so you are not only taking your risk to go out on your own you're also questioning what they believe in. So it's going to be difficult for them. And not speaking their language either. I mean, right? Because it's just not, it's not a concept. I got a lot of kind of blinking responses of like,

what are you thinking of doing? Yeah. My old, the guy I worked for before said he was worried for my family. That's what he said. You're not going to make it, you know? And that's okay. my family. That's what he said. You're not going to make it, you know? And that's okay. You got to be strong. Free agents is brought to you by AgendaMinder. You know, these days there are more meetings than ever and there are good meetings and bad meetings. Bad meetings are a waste of your time and good meetings only come when you plan. AgendaMinder is an app for your Mac that will help make your meetings better. It's a personal productivity tool for you to plan what you need to talk about in your meetings and help you focus on what you want to accomplish. And you may be dreaming of taking a step into independent life,

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to check out AgendaMinder from Internodal today at internodal.xyz slash agents. It's also in the Mac App Store. Thank you to Agenda Minder for their support of free agents and all of RelayFM. So whether or not you're telling people, you're still getting a paycheck. And what are the things you can start doing, the steps you can start taking once you said, I'm going to make the move and you've set a date. Maybe you said in three months or six months or whatever. What can you start doing? And you and I have very different kind of businesses. We've

got some things in common and some things that are different. I don't have a law firm, which would be good because I'm not licensed for that. Yeah, that'd be bad. Yeah, that would be don't set up a law firm if you're not a lawyer, kids. For me, because I'm a writer and a web content producer, a lot of it was technical. So in addition to setting up my workspace, I did a lot of behind the scenes work in order to set up where I was going to go. I wanted to create the places where I would live. And so I had a server that I got set up and I started installing software on the server and we set up a corporation in advance and i got a uh corporate bank account and i got a po box and i got a bunch of stuff like that that was the infrastructure

the po box so that i could send out mailing mailing list things because by law you have to put a postal mailing address if you send out emails which is really dumb but you do so i got a po box and i paid for it with my credit card from my corporate account that i had set up a small business account at the bank that's that i can walk to in five minutes from my house and and so all of these things were like little pieces and then we got and we got a credit card uh as well because it was easier to pay for things with a with a business credit card than through the debit card from the, from the local bank. And you've got to set up the server and set up the software. And so for me, it was a lot of stuff like that. It was,

it was my physical equipment, uh, in my house. And then it was a whole lot of infrastructure in terms of, of a business license and then financial stuff and a mail drop and all the things that let me create an entity that I could cut over to when the time came. Yeah, I think it's like you want to be like a duck. On the surface, you look very calm, and underneath the water, your feet are just paddling like mad. And that's what I like to do. So like Jason's saying, if you're going to open a new business, start thinking about what the text is you want to use on your website. Start thinking about the marketing pieces you want to get lined up. Because a lot of that stuff, even though you don't do anything public-facing, you can do all the prep work on that before you go.

Once again, I'm not giving legal advice on the show, but I'm against doing generally public-facing things. Like I wouldn't even set up the company until after you left. Just keep it all. So if anybody ever looks at it later, they see that you had a job and then you left and then you started this other thing, but all that back in stuff you can do as well. Uh, lining up resources like Jason was talking about, you know, we taught, we did a whole show on location, start thinking about locations. You know, if you want to do a coworking space space, start visiting some co-working spaces and getting an idea of what they cost. And one of the best things I did, this was really the first thing I did when it hit me that I was going to actually do this, or maybe it was in the same process, is I made a spreadsheet. I opened up numbers and I started

looking and said, well, how much can I rely upon from clients that will probably come with me? And I started looking and said, well, how much can I rely upon from clients that will probably come with me? How much am I making on the books? How much do we need? And the spreadsheet is going to be a little depressing because you're going to be losing money when you look at it because of this change. But it may work out for you. But you need to be realistic. How much is insurance going to cost? And think about all the little costs when you're in an existing business.

And if you're working for the man and you're going out into a business, take a look at the stuff they're doing. What are they doing in the background? For a lawyer, it's malpractice insurance. How much is that going to cost? You're going to have to pay for it now. For a writing business or whatever business you do, there's costs you have. If you're a software developer, you're going to have to buy some equipment. But start getting really in the weeds on that stuff. You're absolutely right. The idea that part of being prepared to leave is to do the math about what's going to happen when you leave. And yeah, that also means that if you look at the math and it's terrifying, then you need to think about whether you really want to do this. And I feel

like there's maybe a whole other show about those kind of financial calculations that we could do a whole other episode. Yeah, let's do one on the spreadsheet. Yeah, because it's a huge deal. And, you know, you make assumptions and all of that. But I think in large scale, you're absolutely right. You need to be aware of all the things that you're going to have to do. If I had to boil it down, and there are reasons for this that we'll get into about what happens when you make that step a little bit later. But I feel like you need to be ready day one. Day one, when you step out of the working world of your old job and into this new world of being independent should not be,

well, now what? Should not be the moment where you start to put the pieces together. Like the pieces should have been assembled in the background i really believe that as much as possible you can't do everything but as much as possible there should be no surprises that were avoidable that you could have you could have solved uh the problems and been ready to go because you're going to have enough to deal with without having to uh go through all these things that you could have been laying the groundwork for for months previously if you had the chance. And find people who've done it already. You probably have friends, because if you're in the business, you've been in the business for a while,

that have already gone out and done something like this. But if you don't have any friends that have done it, go online and find somebody. People are pretty willing to share experience with them. And just ask them, what was the thing that surprised you when you did it? Find out for your particular type of business, what is the thing that people get tripped up on? And get that information. It's power to you. And you're still working for the man.

Your feet are paddling under the water. Nobody knows. And you are going to have a material's it's going to have a material impact on your ability to be successful with this the more you do with those feet under the water okay um in addition to that i think this is the time when you start sharing it with other people too um and i'm talking about your boss i'm talking about your family your friends i think that's important yeah i agree and and that's a laying the groundwork kind of situation too in a lot of cases. I mean, for me, I spent better part of a year emotionally preparing my wife for this and it was very successful and I didn't sell her on it. But

once she was exposed to the idea of what this was and how it would work, which is, you talk about people at your work at your work, not understanding this people, your family doesn't understand it either. Once she got her head around sort of like, what would this be? Um, over the course of that year, she went from being, this is terrifying to you, you need to do this. And, uh, and similarly talking to my father-in-law a lot about it. He was, uh, uh, an executive recruiter for a lot of years. So he had a lot of advice about giving notice and about, you know, going out on my own. And he, you know, he did some of that in his previous career. All of that was really good, too. But it was not only good information in times and supportive at times, but it was also the case where not to come back to what happens on day one but on day one the people

who know me and love me were there to support me rather than having this moment of like what are you doing and being kind of not not to get all new agey but kind of bad energy yeah the last thing you want is negativity um and confusion surrounding you when you do this that that's that's not not a good idea. Well, one of the things that occurred to me while I was, and this is the hippie segment of our show, I guess. That's right. Stay cool, man.

I think I was unhappy with the way my life was going with the situation I was in. And it wasn't really because the people I was with were miserable or anything. It's not that. It's just something inside me. And I felt like I wasn't setting the example that I wanted for my children. I didn't want them to see that that's what you do when you grow up. You know, I wanted them to see that, no, you can be, you have an exciting career that you control. And when I brought up with my wife, her response was like, oh, hell yes. I mean, she, I didn't have to sell her at all. If anything, she's the one who was

pulling me along in hindsight. And that is so huge. I'm so lucky that she her at all. If anything, she's the one who was pulling me along in hindsight. And that is so huge. I'm so lucky that she felt that way. I remember at one point, one of the things on my spreadsheet was insurance, right? You've got to get your own health insurance. And that is a lot of money. And I was looking at going, wow, this is going to be rough. You know, we're going to have to spend this money.

And she said, you know, if worse comes to worse, because my wife worked at Disneyland for like 20 20 years you know screw it i'll go back to disneyland and we'll get health insurance you know that is not going to hold you back and it's like that freedom you get from that support is super important and i guess the flip side of that is if your husband or your wife or your loved ones are like you know we're really uncomfortable with this and we're really afraid you need to take that into consideration in making the decision because if you don't have that support on day one, it's going to be a lot harder. Yeah. Then you're fighting two wars, right? Yeah. It's hard enough to do this and go out on your own when you have supportive people behind you. When,

when you're out on your own and even the people who are supposed to support you are basically fighting you, that's not a good situation to be in. Which is not to say you need the permission and approval of everyone around you. But I think if my experience is any indication, giving them the opportunity to digest what's going on and to understand that you're doing this because there's an opportunity or because there's an opportunity and it will make you happier. Getting them to understand that it's not like you're going to be unemployed and that you're looking for another job, but that this is you're making your own job, then, you know, I think in most cases, people will understand. They may not agree, right? They may be like, I don't know why you would ever leave the law firm, David.

But if they understand, right, even if they don't agree, they understand why you're doing it and they know what you're doing, that goes a way and that's it's an excellent way to practice getting your your act together on how you're going to communicate this uh in the future to your employer when you tell them and your clients and the other people in your life that are going to be part of this transition okay so we've laid the groundwork then what what? It's time to give notice, right? Oh, boy. That's a rough day. That is a rough day.

Yeah. I had this mantra I think I talked about on a prior show where I don't know what it was, but every morning for years I think I would get up and take my shower and say, today's the day I'm going to quit my job. And without even really like thinking about it, I guess I was really ready to do this a long time. And then one day I got up in the shower and said it, and it was actually the day I was going to do it. And that was pretty, that was pretty remarkable for me. I was so nervous about this. I mean, I really was, I really was nervous about it. And it was like finding the right moment. And when is my boss around? And I had an out of town boss. So it was when I wanted to talk to him in person. So it was when I was in town. And it was one of those things where it felt really momentous. I mentioned my father-in-law,

who was an executive recruiter. I ended up calling him. I got off the bus several stops early and walking through San Francisco. And I called him because he was available. I couldn't talk to him the night before, but he was available that morning. And we talked, I ended up walking, you know, most of the way to my office and then stopping in this like little park and sitting on a bench and talking to him. And it was just like, here are the things you say. And it was all good advice. It's stuff I knew, but it felt like it crystallized it a lot of like, you know, I need to, I'm not happy here.

I need to do my own thing. All of these things. And that was good. But it was nerve wracking. And then it was a meeting, like a four o'clock meeting. It was the end of the day. And I was in a meeting with my boss and a bunch of other people. And then when it was over, I said, could I talk to you for a minute?

And, oh, man, it was so stressful. And for me, that was like I was essentially quitting a job I'd been at for 15 years. Yeah, that's tough. And it was tough. And I liked my boss. He was a nice guy. We're Facebook friends.

He's a good guy. I wasn't quitting because of him, but it was a really hard conversation to have, right? And I tried very hard. I'm a conflict avoider. I tried very hard to avoid doing it for as long as possible. Something you did in that process is super smart. It's like an old trial lawyer trick is you practice saying the words.

I mean, whenever you have something really important to say, you can have the words perfectly formed in your mind. And everybody listening to this, I sure has experienced this you know exactly what you want to say and then you open your mouth and this thing comes out of your mouth that you have no idea where it came from right yeah and i think that you really have to verbalize it it's not good enough to write it down and read it it's it's you have to make your lips and your tongue say the words and say it to your husband say it to your your mirror say it to your phone and your tongue, say the words and say it to your husband, say it to your, your mirror, say it to your phone and a camera and then watch it back, but actually rehearse the words. I, I used to be, um, one of the things when I used to do a lot more trial work is I'd practice my opening statements and closing statements. I would say the words. And one time I was at a stoplight

and I was like giving my closing statement and you know how, you know, somebody's watching you. Yeah. I looked to my right and there were two members of the jury that were like carpooling or something in the car next to me just like looking at me and and grinning you know and when the trial was over they said were you like practicing your statement I'm like yeah I was but it works it really works so this communication you're going to tell him you're leaving practice it you know not only sketch out what you want to say but get the words out of your mouth. And really, I think the theme of it should be, it's not you, it's me. Pete Yeah, this is the, it's a classic breakup.

And if you get the opportunity, I mean, if you are losing your job, then it's a different story. But if you are initiating this, it is the classic breakup. Because the fact is, saying it's not you, it's me is the way to do it. I mean, this is the psychology of it's not is saying it's not you it's me is the way to do it i mean this is the psychology of it's not you it's me even if it is them it's not them because in the end they aren't deciding for you to leave you're deciding for you to leave and so that's the story that you need to tell them and and yes that is a story you may need to hone your story to have it really be it's not you it's me when i When I went to my boss, one of the things I was saying to him was, I'm miserable. And essentially, I was saying, I can't work here

anymore. I'm not going somewhere else. I just can't work here anymore. But the way I phrased it was, it's about me. I no longer have a joy in what I'm doing. My role has changed to the point now where it doesn't allow me to be creative on a daily basis. And I need to find that again. And I'm not serving you well, and I'm not happy. And it's not good for anyone. And so I'm going to step up here and do you a favor, essentially, by walking away. And it's going to be better for me. And I'm not serving you well enough here for me to stay because you don't want me this miserable and burning out and the fact is yes

i was saying the place was so bad that i had to leave but i i didn't make it about like you you did this it's not that it's like i have to do something for me and make it about yourself because it is about you ultimately is about yourself revenge or or attack or pinning the blame on people doesn't help you're not in it to change them if you're in it to change them you're not quitting right you're you're just trying to play a game and that's i don't i don't recommend that at all if you go into it with what i had which is the fear that they were going to talk me out of it, that was what I was afraid of. Not of letting them down, not of going out on my own, but being

talked into not leaving. That was what I was afraid of. And guess what? They did talk me into not leaving for eight months. That's what happened. So, again, make it about yourself and that you're making a move for yourself because you are. And if you're not making it for yourself, but to get at them, rethink what you're doing because that's not a reason to leave. Well, I had the exact same experience, Jason. They were, I was afraid they were going to talk me out of it because, because of the depression era parents, because of this stuff inside me, it was really hard for me to do this. And they wanted to talk me out of it. And I would say for good reasons. I mean, I think they felt like I was making a mistake and that they could take care

of me and that I should not be doing this because it was going to be a disaster for me and my family. That's what I think their thought was. And I finally said to them, I have other opportunities that I'm missing out on because of my commitments here. And the fact is I've accepted that if I don't try those opportunities, I will never forgive myself. And at that point, they lean back in the chair and said, okay, you know, how can we make this work? You know, so that's, you know, you've got to figure out how it's going to work for you. But Jason's right. Don't burn bridges on your way out. It's just not worth it. Even if there's a part of you that just wants to torch the place. I mean, don't do it because these businesses are small and you never know what

the future holds and there's just no reason, you know. I mean, my story is that I ended up staying and then with assurances that they were going to give the new bosses a couple of years so there was going to be new management and all that and they didn't give them two years and in eight months there was another big layoff. And I had actually a part of this conversation conversation was i don't want to go through these layoffs again um and that was that was part of it was like look if this happens again i don't want to be here so you know i'll stay if we're not going to do the massive layoffs again then we had a massive layoff and and they gave me a severance and they let me go which is great because otherwise i was going to have to quit basically and leave with nothing but um the fact is when my severance agreement passed,

the week that my severance agreement passed, I already had an agreement with my former co-workers to start a column. And since every week, basically I have not, not been paid by my former employer for, I've been paid by them continuously because they were paying my severance. And then I immediately started working for them again. And if I had burned the bridge, that would not have happened. And it's just, it's not a good idea. But that's not always the case. But even if you don't have the potential of getting future income from that, it just doesn't make sense. Well, sure. Everybody you worked with, probably, unless you were making a complete career change, something that I didn't realize when I was 25 that I realize now that I'm 45, the people around you, they don't go away.

It's not like going from college to a job where it's a totally new collection of people. And then you go to another job and it's a totally new collection. Unless you change careers entirely, like leaving everything from your past behind. The fact is the people you know are going to be around in your business forever, basically. And maybe not all of them, but you won't know which ones are coming and which ones are going. Blowing them off, treating them badly, burning bridges, it's never a good idea. Because then, you know, five years from now, there'll be somebody working somewhere who knows you and remembers that bad way that you exited and says, I don't know about that guy. Now, all that being said, I think you should go in, give two weeks notice, do everything right, and be ready to work with them. There's always the risk you'll go in and you'll give your notice and they'll say, okay, Mr. Fancy Pants, you're not loyal to us.

You've got this other thing. Get out. Our salespeople at one point, that was the lesson because they felt like editors, they didn't care about so much, but salespeople did for some reason. But that's the day I learned that lesson again in my mid-twenties, which is there's a chance all the time, but certainly if you quit, there is a strong chance that you will be asked to leave immediately, that all of your stuff will be shut off immediately, that you may be supervised

as you clean your knickknacks off of your desk. So my advice there is the moment that you give your notice, you need to be in a place where you can walk out of there and be done. Don't say I'm gonna need a few hours to copy a bunch of files. When I was planning to leave a few hours to copy a bunch of files. When I was planning to leave, I came in on a weekend and took all of my not visible personal effects home. I left the

visible ones because that would give too much away. But all the not visible ones were home. I took them away because I needed to be prepared. And I just feel like that's what you have to do. They may shut off your email and delete your key card and usher you out of the building. Someday on this show, I'm going to tell the story of how I worked for a very large law firm for three weeks. And at one point during that very short stint, every day when I'd go home, my briefcase would be full of like stuff out of my desk. And it was like knickknacks, you know, it wasn't like I was stealing files. I was actually taking home. Yeah, personal effects and stuff. Because I knew pretty soon this wasn't working. I was going to give them notice and I

just didn't want to go through it. So yeah, yeah, be ready for that. Because it could happen. And that's the whole thing we're talking about the top of the show about, you know, marketing materials, lining up resources, have all that stuff done before you say anything because if they do say get out, then you need to hit the ground running because you just stopped making money and this just got real for you. So make sure you're ready for that. After your last day,

and we're going to talk about what happens after your last day anyway with a whole different show, but just for the sake of, I want to say this every time we come across this, don't panic. I mean, it is so easy after you say, oh my goodness, I just did this and now it's for real. I think everybody that I know that goes through this has something blow

up right after they quit. Our friend Katie Floyd just started her own business. She had some family illnesses all of a sudden right after she left. Two days after I cleaned out my desk and quit my job, I had the onset of drastically terrible kidney stones for like four months. And at first, I didn't even know what it was. I'm like, oh, my goodness. I quit my job and now I have cancer. It's like, Jason, you can tell your story. I know what happened to you.

Yeah, well, I mean, this is that example of being ready on day one. I was glad that I was because the day before my last day, my last full day on the job was an Apple event. And for the first time in a couple of years, they gave me a briefing and handed me a phone in advance and said, here's your review from Macworld. You should write the review of the new iPhone. I had this moment of like, well, wait, what does this mean? Because one, I don't work there anymore as of tomorrow. And the embargo is the next week. So am I going to write a story for them after I'm not getting paid by them anymore?

How does that work? Do I give them the phones? Apple doesn't really like it. Backstory here of Apple doesn't like it when they give you the phone. They expect you to review it, not give it to a rando. That's not cool because they're not briefing Macworld. They're briefing me, right, in this case. And I had a conference to go to over

the weekend. And I had prepared to launch my website, right. But it was one of those moments where I think I may have mentioned this on the show, if I have any regret about how I left was I really wish I had been able to take a week or two or a month to decompress a little bit from what had been going on and then start anew. And because of all of these combinations, I suddenly had a huge amount of things happening the moment that I left. So I had to negotiate with my successor, essentially at IDG, about the review. And what we decided to do was I would write them a review basically for free in exchange for a link to my new site. And I would be able to write some stuff on that site that was like an extended kind of other notes about it,

like a review part two, because I wanted to be fair to them, but I also wanted to get something out of it since I wasn't getting paid. But that meant that my site had to launch, which means I went from leaving my job on a Thursday to launching a brand new website on a Monday afternoon, or maybe a Tuesday. It was a very small amount of time. And I never planned any of that, right? That was never the intent, but it all exploded. And I ended up having to go to a conference while writing a review, while launching a new website, and handing content into my old employer who all of whom work totally beside themselves because they just lost you know whatever a dozen of their colleagues it was yeah

it was quite a time and it was just it like you said something blew up and and and and that's why i always say you don't you don't know what's going to happen but that's why you need to be ready on day one and not plan to on day one figure out what you're doing because you probably will have to start adjusting immediately to unexpected circumstances so get get take care of everything you can expect in advance okay so let's talk about just in summary some of the mistakes to avoid during this time period you know when you're starting to make the plan to quit you're still working for the man but you haven't made the move yet. Yeah. So, number one is what I just said, right? Don't expect to do your planning when you leave. Plan before. Get it ready to go so that on day one, you feel like I've done everything I can up to this point and now start the clock.

Number two, I would say is rage quitting versus rage planning. Channel that anger, channel that desire to leave into something constructive, which is getting ready to leave instead of just letting it out in a rage. The next one is saying too much to the existing employer too soon. We've already kind of covered that, but be careful. In a prior show, I talked about competition laws. Make sure you talk to a lawyer. Make sure you know if you're going to do something that involves existing clients going to the new business,

start figuring out what you need to do now. Don't take any action, but talk to people so you don't make mistakes. And the last one I can think of is getting paralyzed by small decisions. I mean, when you're starting to do this stuff, don't spend a month deciding on the font for your business card. It's tempting, right? Especially for fiddly people like us, but don't spend a month deciding on the font for your business card. Yeah. It's tempting, right? Especially for fiddly people like us, but don't do that. What you will learn rapidly when you are out there on your own is that there's no time for delays like that. At a job, having large stretches of not being productive is covered by, and I'm not saying

you're being lazy and not not working but when you've got dozens or hundreds of people working on stuff a lot of this stuff kind of washes away just kind of in the mix you can't see it but when you're out on your own if like you're not working right then then uh that's it you're not working and your productivity has gone from a hundred percent to zero percent so these small decisions you, yeah, make them and move on because otherwise you will end up, I mean, that happened to me with a couple of things that I, a couple of projects I did where I was like, oh, I'm going to do this by the end of the year. And like eight months passed. And when I finally decided to do it, it took two hours, but I was paralyzed for a

long time about it. And it's just, you can't, you can't do that. And that's probably a whole nother conversation once you get started. Probably. so. And then, and then, I mean, sort of subsection to rage quitting versus rage planning, but just to say it again, it's not you, it's me. Again, just the mistake to avoid is don't not, not only do you channel your dissatisfaction into planning, but when it comes time, if you're making this decision because it's you and you want to go do something else, which is the reason to do it. It should not be because I'm going to go out on my own because I hate my employer. That's not a good reason. You have to go out on your own because you want to do something else that will be better than your job and you're excited about it.

And channel that into your conversation when you give your notice because that's what it's about. It's about a decision you're making and that way you aren't burning bridges. Let the bridges be there. You never know. A lot of people in different industries, they'll end up being a freelancer or have their old employer be a client to them. In a lot of different cases, that actually does happen when there's a good relationship there because you're familiar to them and they like your work and you may not have enjoyed working with them and you may not want to continue. But why not just leave it there?

Because ultimately, it's the truth. It's not them. It's you. You want to do something better. All right. Have we done it? I think we have. Have we handled 007?

We have. And if we miss something, if there's a mistake we should avoid that we didn't talk about, send it in as feedback. We're getting closer to doing one of those feedback shows. So we'd like to hear from you. It'll happen soon. Yeah, you can get links to email us and also show notes and all the episodes at relay.fm slash freeagents.

See you next time. Bye, everybody. Thank you.