Five things to consider way before you quit your day job

Let’s say you had a year before you plan to quit your day job to pursue your passion and so on. What attitudes would best predict success for you out there, and what should you be learning right now?

I have a short list of five things that you should work on.

1. Attitude towards money, and the lack thereof

Most advice for new entrepreneurs centers around the idea of savings: save up so that money in the bank can cushion you through those first few years of your business. This is great advice, but it misses the point in one regard: it’s never as much about the amount of money in your savings account as it is about your attitude towards money overall. Most service businesses take time to ramp up revenue. Even when then do, most service businesses have cycles: there’s more money in certain parts of the year, and less in some others. Which means that your savings balance goes down and up, and for most of those first few years, you are not entirely in control of this.

If you derive strength and peace of mind from your savings balance, or conversely, if you’re very fearful of the lack of money in the bank, entrepreneurship will be a pretty stressful ride. Question this about yourself first, and build the mental and emotional safeguards necessary (I presented a few ideas about this in this video) before you find yourself in the thick of things.

2. Permission-less attitude:

If you’re quitting your job today to start something new, the lack of a boss from hereon out seems pretty amazing. The freedom that this idea represents appeals to a lot of people, but when I look back at the moment I quit, I realize that the idea of a boss contained several non-apparent things: structure, planning, a vision that’s broader than today’s tactical challenge, performance feedback (so important) and reviews, and in the best of cases, mentoring. Beyond all these though, is a prickly question for some: how much of what you did this year at work was mandated by your KPI/KRA sheet and your boss/es?

Once you begin your new career, the only directions you’ll go towards are the ones you decide on. And it helps if you’ve been building this attitude towards life all through: to do things not mandated, to will yourself into circles adjacent to yours that aren’t part of your core responsibility, to exercise your mind and act on ideas not pushed by your job/role/boss. If you look back at your current year, can you name five things you’ve pushed for all by yourself? And if not, can you begin now?

3. Learning attitude:

The job you’re at right now took 15-16 years of education to get to, and possibly years of corporate training and real life experience to get better at. You are, whether you like it or not, perfectly groomed to do what you're doing today. Your next job, this dream you’re willing to pursue, deserves the same love. And there’s no training agenda beyond the one you set for yourselves.

Most creative service entrepreneurs who are shifting careers aren’t trained formally for very long in the passion pursuit they’re about to push for. And for those who’ve made the shift, the challenges of running an active business leave little time for learning. Building a no-compromise attitude towards continuous learning is the only way to fix it. And this has to begin way before you quit your current job: taking time out of your schedule, using your weekends well, building a learning plan for yourself, setting goals, and working with mentors for reviews.

4. People attitude:

The world turns on the way you work with and build relationships with people. If you’re transactional in your relationships at your desk job, know that this will seriously slow your progress when you’re out there on your own.

The entrepreneur life is largely about people: whether it’s your team, your clients, or your vendors. If you haven’t quit your desk job yet, I’ll ask you to think about how well you’re doing on this dimension: can you strike up conversations with strangers, have you built the ability to hold the room (that’s not the same thing as being the loudest in the room), are you empathetic with your team, and much more. The people attitude is a pretty large predictor of success, and your current job is a great place to start working on yourself to build this up further.

5. Sharing attitude:

Now that your desk job is going to be a blip in your rear view, all of your (personal and work) brand building will hinge on your ability to communicate with and build audiences. And central to this is the idea of sharing: your work, your thoughts, your life, your highs, your plans, and your progress. And sharing needs you to build your own voice.

Don’t wait for the day you have to build your dream company’s website, or a brand new social media page, to learn how to share online. Do it today, while you still have time to learn without consequences.

Conclusion

Most entrepreneurs don’t score perfect 10’s on these five attitudes, and that’s perfectly okay. You may be over-indexed and better at a few of these attitudes than you are at the rest, and that’s perfectly okay too. This list exists as a reminder of what to watch for, not as a quiz that you must ace before you begin. Happy hunting! :)