<story><title>I quit my job, and I&apos;m excited about a more independent life</title><url>http://danielhough.co.uk/blog/unhuddled/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xwowsersx</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m always interested in reading about how people have managed to gain some personal and financial independence. But I find it hard to relate to this article. I guess if you have the runway to just sit around and discover what it is you really want do, then cool. But there&amp;#x27;s no real plan here, just &amp;quot;oh maybe I&amp;#x27;ll do freelancing too..yeah that sounds good.&amp;quot; Maybe I&amp;#x27;ve just been fortunate, but I&amp;#x27;ve always worked in jobs where I feel I&amp;#x27;m getting paid to learn skills that I know will be highly valuable whenever I decide to do something on my own. And I try to work on my own stuff, putting in 10-15 hours a week while still working a full-time job. I&amp;#x27;d love to just leave my job, but I don&amp;#x27;t see why setting aside some solid hours each week isn&amp;#x27;t enough to get something off the ground. So, unless you&amp;#x27;re absolutely miserable in your job you shouldn&amp;#x27;t just leave it unless there&amp;#x27;s actually some other &amp;quot;thing&amp;quot; you&amp;#x27;re working on that actually requires your full-time attention. Again, maybe a lot of this post just reflects a sort of path of personal discovery, but it&amp;#x27;s hard for me to relate to. To me, the lesson is more about finding a job that is fulfilling enough and still leaves you enough time to work on your other stuff with the hopes that your other projects can eventually become self-sustaining and lead you to greater personal and financial independence.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alabut</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s an entire book about why you&amp;#x27;re right and the OP&amp;#x27;s approach is generally the wrong one, called &lt;i&gt;So Good They Can&amp;#x27;t Ignore You&lt;/i&gt;. The OP is exhibiting the classic &amp;quot;passion mindset&amp;quot; - you search your soul for your passions and if you plumb deep enough, you&amp;#x27;ll magically unlock some cheat code in the world and people will start paying you.&lt;p&gt;The book is a light intro into the field of Self-Determination Theory and it&amp;#x27;s filled with examples of people following their passion for 6 months before flaming out because no one will pay them for the thing they like to do.&lt;p&gt;Another way to put it is that making money takes practice just like playing the piano does. You&amp;#x27;re probably not going to wake up one day and realize that an empty calendar is exactly what you need to learn how people will pay you for something that nobody told you to build.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1985-making-money-takes-practice-like-playing-the-piano-takes-practice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;37signals.com&amp;#x2F;svn&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;1985-making-money-takes-pract...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-business-advice-from-jason-fried.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.inc.com&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;20110301&amp;#x2F;making-money-small-busi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>I quit my job, and I&apos;m excited about a more independent life</title><url>http://danielhough.co.uk/blog/unhuddled/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xwowsersx</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m always interested in reading about how people have managed to gain some personal and financial independence. But I find it hard to relate to this article. I guess if you have the runway to just sit around and discover what it is you really want do, then cool. But there&amp;#x27;s no real plan here, just &amp;quot;oh maybe I&amp;#x27;ll do freelancing too..yeah that sounds good.&amp;quot; Maybe I&amp;#x27;ve just been fortunate, but I&amp;#x27;ve always worked in jobs where I feel I&amp;#x27;m getting paid to learn skills that I know will be highly valuable whenever I decide to do something on my own. And I try to work on my own stuff, putting in 10-15 hours a week while still working a full-time job. I&amp;#x27;d love to just leave my job, but I don&amp;#x27;t see why setting aside some solid hours each week isn&amp;#x27;t enough to get something off the ground. So, unless you&amp;#x27;re absolutely miserable in your job you shouldn&amp;#x27;t just leave it unless there&amp;#x27;s actually some other &amp;quot;thing&amp;quot; you&amp;#x27;re working on that actually requires your full-time attention. Again, maybe a lot of this post just reflects a sort of path of personal discovery, but it&amp;#x27;s hard for me to relate to. To me, the lesson is more about finding a job that is fulfilling enough and still leaves you enough time to work on your other stuff with the hopes that your other projects can eventually become self-sustaining and lead you to greater personal and financial independence.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>graeme</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a totally fine approach. That said, there&amp;#x27;s something to be said for burning your bridges. Well, burning your ships, is the better but less known metaphor.&lt;p&gt;I left law school a couple of years ago with a lousy plan to post on American craigslist listings, advertising LSAT tutoring. American rates were far higher than what I could charge in Montreal, Canada.&lt;p&gt;That plan was a total failure. But I was determined not to go back on the path that I was on. I wrote blog posts about the LSAT, and stayed in touch with people in my field. Eventually, an opportunity to be listed on the major blog in the niche came up, and later a chance to write explanations for the LSAT in return for royalties. I also set up a relationship with a company to teach classes for them, something I could not have done if I had still been in school full time.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m still doing all the things I started in the first dismal 3-4 months after leaving school. I couldn&amp;#x27;t be happier with how things worked out. If I had just tried it on the side, I never would have gotten so deep into things, and would have missed the opportunities I got. I HAD to find opportunities, because I had left myself no easy road back.</text></comment>