This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
Find the right fuel
The career jump is really intoxicating because culturally, we kind of fantasize about what it’s going to be like, where I’m quitting the job. I’m kicking the door down. I’m squealing out of there. I did it. I jumped or I’m opening up the coffee shop and it’s got a really cool name. The mascot has a dog logo and I feel so good. You have this moment about what it’s going to look like. Sometimes we get impatient in that. We don’t want to take the right steps along the way. That’s why when you go through a jump, you need to have your character in place. Especially have something like empathy. If you’re going to jump, if you’re going to go to a new city, take a new job, maybe open a new business. You need empathy. Empathy is defined as understanding what someone needs and acting on it.
When I go to a new company, I need to be able to understand what’s the currency at this company? What matters most at this company? If I start a new business, what matters most to the people I’m serving? How do I really see them? How do I lean into those? You start to have conversations like that, but you also need your relationships when you go through a jump. You need friends that’ll tell you the truth about what you’re trying to do, because we all have that one friend that’ll clap for whatever we say like crazy Brenda, where we go, “Brenda, I’m doing it. I’m going to open up this like ferret utopia with like, it’s going to be like a ferret habit trail on the ceiling. Like people love it. People love ferrets.” Brenda goes, “Yay. Do it. That’s amazing.” You know you can get a yes from Brenda, but you need people in your life that’ll tell you the truth and say, “Hey, I think you’re being impatient, or I think you’re rushing it, or I think there’s some things you need to think about.”
A jump moment, a positive jump moment doesn’t mean wrecking your life. It means being deliberate and having patience and developing your skills along the way. When I talk to people about, okay, you’re on that precipice, you’re about to do the jump. Some of the questions I’ll ask is, “How’s your attitude right now?” If they have a bad attitude about the place they’re leaving, if that’s what’s fueling where they’re leaving versus great attitude about where they’re headed, I’ll try to pause them for a second. Go, “Hey, hey, hey, I don’t want how poisonous the previous place is to land you in a different, bad place. Hold on a second. Maybe there’s some vitamins in this moment that we can work on this place. Maybe we can figure this out. I don’t want you to jump somewhere dangerous right now in this moment, because there’s a lot of anger about something there. There’s a lot of passion that should be applied in the right way, but maybe it’s missing.
I think you need to talk with your friends. I think you need to be honest about why you’re thinking about jumping. I think you also need to be really honest about what are my expectations? What are some practical things you can do to meet them, but what are some smart ways you can know, “Okay, this is the wrong expectation, and it’s a bad fuel for my jump?”
Beta-test opportunities
Say you were going to take another job in the company you’re at. Right now, it’s funny, we have this attitude, sometimes that to do a jump, to do a brave moment means you have to start a business or you have to be an entrepreneur. We praise the entrepreneur right now in our culture. I think you can do amazing work at big companies. I think there are people across the country doing amazing work inside the construct of a big company. If you’re going in to do that, I’d have a specific set of questions about that and say, “Okay, what does the jump look like? Is it going to tap into more of what you love to do or less of that? What’s the result of this jump? If it goes well, what’s going to happen? Let’s talk through that. Is it going to play to your strengths? What are the politics of the situation you’re stepping into?”
If you’re part of an established company already, there’s some politics there. Let’s talk through those. Versus if you’re going to go off on your own, say, you’re going to start your own thing. Usually in that conversation, I’ll ask you questions about, “Have you done it before? Is there a small way to test it out? Do you have to do it all at once?” There are some all-or-one situations. I wrote a book about figuring out things to do on the side of your life. In the morning, at night and being deliberate and a cattle rancher came up to me and he said, “I loved your book, but I want to be a cattle rancher. My farm, the ranch I want to work on is nine hours from my day job. I can’t get one head of cattle and put it in my apartment and slowly grow the herd. That doesn’t work for me.” That’s one of the questions I’d ask if you want to do your own thing. “Are there some ways for you to kind of beta test that? Can you start small? Can you grow it over time? I’d always rather you get pulled to an opportunity than push your way, the wrong way toward it.