Why I’m Quitting My Dream Job

Over the years, I’ve trusted my gut through dozens of potentially disastrous decisions, all of which could have turned out very badly.  But somehow, they didn’t.  Instead, those choices have forged a path for me that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.  I’ve trusted my instincts for almost 35 years.  Why stop now?

So today, I’m trusting my gut once again.

After a year of planning and officially giving my notice yesterday, I can publically say it.  I’m quitting my job.  I know that might not sound like a huge deal to everyone.  People quit jobs every day.  The thing is, I’m not just quitting a job.  I’m quitting my dream job.  I’m quitting a job that has more or less defined me for almost a decade and leaping into an incredibly scary unknown.  My life is about to change in a way that I won’t be able to take back and for the first time in ten years I have no idea what my world will look like in twelve months.

This is, hands down, the scariest moment of my life.  It’s scarier then when I first moved to California for college or the three subsequent times I moved back and forth across the country.  It’s scarier than being fifty feet up with an ice ax on an Icelandic glacier and far more terrifying than being inches away from the jaws of a Great White.  And yet, it’s also the most excited I have ever been.

My dad once told me that the secret to happiness is to find something I love doing and then find someone stupid enough to pay me for it.  What that meant to me has changed often, and drastically, over the years.  Like a lot of little girls, I dreamt of being an actress, a singer, a gymnast and (more than anything) a mermaid.

My need for adventure must have started early because I quickly moved on and decided I wanted to be a firefighter or an undercover cop – although I might have been mildly influenced by my adolescent obsession with “Backdraft” and “21 Jumpstreet”.  Office Tom Hanson was and will forever be my first love.  Okay, maybe my second.  My first love was Ricky Schroder’s dad on “Silver Spoons”.  Please don’t ask.

My point is, like most of us, I grew up with unrealistic dreams of my future career and, also like most of us, as I got older, I grew more realistic.  For a time it was writing – specifically, screenwriting.  However, I soon realized that I just don’t have it in me to be a starving artist.  It’s funny how life works out though because it was that dream that lead me to Los Angeles in the first place.  Without that move I wouldn’t have fallen into a job selling network radio for ABC.

And no, I’m not saying that selling radio ad space is my dream job.  That would be weird.  However, I am a passionate (borderline crazy, maybe) sports fan.  I was raised to be that way and if I never make my parents proud for anything else they can rest assured knowing they passed their psychosis down to at least one of their daughters.  So, when I landed at ABC Radio in 2006 it put me in a position to work hand-in-hand with ESPN Radio as well.  ESPN!  THE MOTHER-SHIP!!!

A year-and-a-half later, opportunity knocked.  ESPN added a second Account Executive position in Los Angeles.  With it, the job would bring a pay raise, a sales territory spanning most of the west coast and perks enviable to any sports fan – meeting celebrities of the sports world, the chance to travel to some of the most exciting sporting events of the year, a hefty expense account and a practically endless supply of local game tickets.  It was a big job and one for which I wasn’t entirely sure I was qualified.  In fact, I’m still a little surprised they hired me!

I had done it.  I found something I loved (sports) and I found someone stupid enough to pay me to work in that world.  Less than a week into the job, I was at the 2008 Super Bowl.  Eight months later, I was standing in the Monday Night Football booth in Oakland, meeting “Mike and Mike” for the first time and breathing the same air as another legendary Mike – Ditka…”Da Coach”!  I was rubbing elbows with the stars at the ESPY’s, taking clients to the MLB Play-Offs, going to see my beloved Jets play nearly anytime they were on the west coast, witnessing my Lakers play (and lose) in the NBA Finals and visiting TV and Radio sets at ESPN Headquarters in Bristol, CT a few times a year.  I honestly couldn’t believe I had landed there and I didn’t take any of it for granted.

In 2009, the company moved me to Atlanta because I was tired of life in LA and ready for new surroundings.  Now I had more responsibility, an entire territory – DC through Florida – all to myself and nobody else to lean on, nobody to blame but myself if I failed.  However, somewhere along the way I had learned to embrace such scary situations and, to my own surprise, I thrived.

The move to Atlanta changed my life in the best ways possible.  I gained confidence in who I am professionally and personally.  I bought a house.  I adopted two dogs.  I made in incredibly amazing group of friends who I consider family, just like the ones I was devastated to leave behind in LA.  I had a job I enjoyed and paid me well enough to afford everything I needed and a lot of what I wanted.  I started indulging more in my passion for travel.  I decided, even though having stuff is fun, I’d always spend my money first on experiences – on seeing the world.  Then, if I had any money left over, I’d buy shoes.

I fully acknowledge that I would not be where I am without this job.  I would not be who I am without ESPN.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking why.  Why on earth would I quite a job that has given me so much?  Why would I quite a job that has, quite literally, been a dream come true – a job that has formed me, in almost every important way, into the person I am today.

When it comes down to it, it’s actually quite simple.  I’m quitting my dream job because I have changed – because my dream has changed.

Quite a few years ago, I started to get burnt out.  The source of my frustration was never the company, the product I sell or my coworkers.  I genuinely love them all and take great pride in the team I’ve been a part of and I hope, in some way, have helped grow.  In fact, leaving the people I’ve worked with for a decade is proving to be the hardest part of this whole thing.

No matter how much I enjoyed what I was doing, who I was working with and who I was working for, I knew early on in my career that I could only sustain this high-stress lifestyle for so long.  I knew I wouldn’t be a “lifer”.  It was only a matter of time – a matter of how long I could hold out till the the perks were no longer worth the frustrations.  While I still got a lot of joy from the good days, the growing number of bad ones was slowly eating away at me – eating away at my passion – so much so that one day I simply didn’t recognize myself.

I was tired.  I was angry.  I mean really, really angry.  All.  The.  Time.  Clients, competition, corporate politics and red tape.  It had all slowly, over time, turned my optimistic, happy self into one who came home most nights needing a drink or needing to punch someone.  Or both.

As frustrated as I was, I was still pragmatic.  I knew my problem wasn’t ESPN.  It wasn’t my co-workers or even my high-maintenance clients.  I knew that if I quit I’d just end up looking for another sales job (because let’s face it, I don’t know how to do anything else) and I’d probably end up at a company I didn’t like as much, with coworkers I didn’t care about as much and not getting paid as much.  I knew that if and when I left it would be to get out completely.  If I quit it would be to do something I had gotten strangely comfortable with doing over the years.  If I quit it would be to start over…again.

That begs the question, what else could I do?  I’m quite literally not qualified to do anything else.  Ad sales is pretty much all I know professionally.

As I mentioned above, it didn’t matter how much I love who I worked for.  My frustrations began with the fact that I was working for someone else in the first place.  For as long as I can remember, even when I was just starting at ESPN, my ultimate goal was to someday work for myself.  Over the years I had come up with dozens of (mostly crazy) business ideas.  Let us review some of the highlights.

• My sister and I thought about opening a mobile saline drip clinic.  We would outfit a van or RV and travel to bars, college towns and party cities, giving saline drips to the drunk and hungover.  I actually still think this is a pretty genius idea but, as it turns out, you have to have a medical doctor on location to prescribe the saline and a registered nurse to administer the IV’s.  It didn’t seem too practical to go back to school (med school no less) for eight years and not practice actual medicine nor could we afford to payroll a doctor and a nurse.  So that didn’t work out.  (But if anyone takes this idea I want a percentage!)
• Then there was a food truck – this was another idea my sister and I had together.  We’re actually both quite handy in the kitchen but neither of us know squat about running an actual restaurant or cooking for the masses.  We gave up on that one pretty quickly.
• Oh, and then there was the most brilliant idea of them all – flipping houses with my ex-boyfriend.  I’m sure you can imagine why that one didn’t work.

There were more, but I think you get the point.  I was trying to force my square peg self into the round hole of the economy.  I had all but forgotten my dad’s advice.

It was right there in-front of me and I never opened my eyes.  What is my greatest passion?  What is my ultimate goal?

My greatest passion is travel.  And I don’t mean going on vacation – there is a vast difference between the two.  Nothing makes me feel more alive than setting foot on foreign soil.  Nothing inspires me more than exploration.

My ultimate goal is to foster that passion in others, to help them see the wonder of a planet that I have been blessed to experience.  My desire is to get people off their couches and into the world – a world that was meant to be seen, and seen in person, not on the screen of a TV, computer or smartphone.  Our little planet was meant to be discovered.  I’m not suggesting that everyone quit their jobs to travel.  I’m fairly certain that would trigger an epic societal breakdown.  However, it is possible to take part in the world off the beaten path without dropping all of your responsibilities and turning your back on society.  In my experience, the best way to do that is to allow unfamiliar people and places to change you from the outside in.  If more people did that we’d have a much more passionate, much more loving and much more interesting world.

More than anything, I want to inspire people.  However, it is impossible for me to be an inspiration to anyone if I’m not inspired myself.  Once I acknowledged that fact I had to admit that the only times in the past ten years that I have been truly inspired were when I was traveling.

Okay.  So how do I get paid to do that?  Even more importantly, if I do somehow figure it out, how do I not let the same thing happen again?  The passion I first felt when I started with ESPN was diminished, little by little, by the corporate world.  This time, it needed to be on my own terms.

Through countless conversations with friends and family, ideas materialized.  For the first time in my life I came up with a plan that aligns perfectly with my passions, my experience and my expertise.

Every year, since around 2012, I’ve told myself “this might be my last year”.  Yet every year, when the time drew near, I slipped back into what was comfortable and what was safe.  Until last year.

Last October, I made a promise to myself.  One more year.  One more year of working hard and saving.  “Responsible Society” says that we grow up, go to college, start a career, work in that field for 30-40 years and retire.  I tried it that way for a decade.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret a single minute of it.  I could not have done this ten years ago.  My time at ESPN has gotten me to a place personally, emotionally and financially where I am capable of taking a risk – albeit a calculated one.  But it’s time.  It’s time to do it my way.

So what’s next?

For starters, I am now the proud owner of Not So Normal Travel, LLC – “soft-launching” next month and officially open for business in March or April.  I’ll focus on being a full-service, boutique travel planner.  Not a travel agency.  Anybody these days can book their own cruise or all-inclusive trip to Mexico.  I will be targeting a smaller niche – the adventure traveler – those kindred spirits of mine who can only relax on a beach for so long before their feet start itching to climb a mountain, or jump off a boat into shark infested waters or dive deep into the abyss.  I’ll also market to the more “normal” traveler, attempting to cross them over to the “not so normal” side, inspiring them to take steps, even small ones, outside of their own respective comfort zones.  I will make it so easy to get off the beaten path that they will have no excuse.  All they will have to do is pay one invoice and show up.  I will handle the rest.

But first, I’m making good on another promise I made myself even longer ago.  My biggest regret in life is never traveling long-term after college or when I was in-between jobs.  I was always too realistic (er, scared) about money or traveling alone – or both.  I won’t make that same mistake again.

For a year, I’ve dodged the question I get asked more than anything.  “What’s your next big adventure?”  I’ve been answering that question by saying that I’m climbing Kilimanjaro in January which, by the way, is completely true.  Only there’s a little more to it than that.

7 CONTINENTS.  7 WEEKS.

The purpose of this trip is three-fold.

First is purely emotional.  If I’m going to start a brand new chapter of my life, I need to put myself in a place – physically and emotionally – where I can shed the skin of the last one.  I can’t do that at home, surrounded by the influences of my every-day life.  Only by stepping away will I be able to find the parts of myself that have been lost over the years.  Only then will I know who I am, who I want to be, apart from the job that I’ve allowed to define me for so long.

Second is a little more practical – Marketing.  The world I’m entering into as a travel professional is one of word-of-mouth and social media advertising.  This trip will hopefully become a platform noticed and followed by those adventurers I hope to work with someday soon.

Lastly, I’ll take this opportunity to make contacts around the world with potential clients and partners.

I won’t lie.  I’m scared.  I’m petrified to my very core.  I honestly can’t imagine my life without my job.  The thought of using the words “back when I was at ESPN” in a year not only frightens me but saddens me.  It’s a part of myself that I’m ready to let go of yet I know I will mourn.  It feels kind of like a break-up, the kind that you know is the right thing but still feels like losing a limb.

Of course I’m scared of failing.  I’m scared of going broke.  I’m scared of not being able to pay my mortgage or feed my dogs.  I’m scared that I may have to come crawling back, begging for a job.  I think those are rational fears.  But being brave is not the absence of fear.  It’s also not blindly ignoring fear.  That’s called being reckless.  I think being brave means recognizing fear when it comes, calculating the risks and rewards and doing what you need to do despite the fear.

The simple truth is that it’s not the end of the world if I have to wait tables again for a while or if I have to look for another sales job in a years or so.  I’m okay with taking that risk because there’s one thing that scares me even more.  I’m scared of not trying.

This January would mark the beginning of my 10th year at Disney/ESPN.  I know myself.  If I hit ten, I’ll hit twenty.  And if I hit twenty, I’ll be 45 and will never have even tried to do it on my own terms.  I might fall on my face.  But guess what?  I’ve fallen on my face before and I’ve gotten up.  I’ve wiped the dirt off, mended my bruises, proudly embraced the scars and kept moving.  If I have to, I can do it again.

It all comes down to one thing.  For almost a decade, I’ve been the girl who works for ESPN.  It’s been my identity.  Granted, it’s a pretty darn cool identity and one that I’ve embraced – until a year ago when I came to a hard realization.

I don’t want my job to define who I am.

I want who I am to define my job.

And so here I am, once again, trusting my gut.  If I can succeed in molding my job to my passions then it will be worth any sacrifice I make or any risk I take in the process.  I’ll look back from the other side of the tunnel knowing that what lies ahead is another exciting chapter in a life I’m just trying to live well.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll inspire someone else along the way.

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