No Parachutes: Leaving my Job for my Dreams

What I wanted was so far away from the path that I was on.

Every day I woke up, poured my coffee, and drove an hour into Baltimore to go to work. I guess the job seemed like a pretty good gig. But not for me. I wanted something else.

I'm an entrepreneur. I take risks. For me, a 9-5 is too predictable. Settling for something will never keep me engaged and content. I don't want predictable. I don't want autopilot.

My brain moves fast. It's impulsive too. I pump out ideas and concepts that seem brilliant to me all the time. But bringing these projects to life is hard for me.

Most of my ideas never come to fruition. I hop from one idea to another, but never take much action on it.

Things don't happen unless you make them happen.

Thats why I just quit my job to pursue my dreams.

I know what you're thinking:

Why not work on it part-time?

This is one of the most common questions. Working on a startup part-time is never a good approach. Startups are hard. There are so many things that can go wrong. You're either all-in or you're not. You can't half-ass a startup.

It's definitely a risk. Most people think that you should already be generating plenty of income before you quit your job. That might be true for some people...

But I'm an entrepreneur. And I take risks. The founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, said that starting a startup is like "throwing yourself off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down." Having a job while working on a startup part-time is like having a parachute during that jump. When assembling the airplane gets tough, you're gonna bail and deploy that parachute. You're gonna quit and go back to your day job. Every time.

I am not sure if my my startup will work out or not. There's one thing I am sure of: I won't have regrets. There is no lack of trying. I am trying to live my dream, and I haven't been this excited in a long time.