The Day I Quit My Job

My last day in a corporate job was October 15, 2010.

In truth, I had started thinking about quitting about a year before that. Every Monday night, I had coaching sessions with Gabby. In the coaching sessions, I would talk about wanting to quit my job (which was in digital advertising at a major corporate health website), but I had no idea what I’d do if I quit. I had been there for 3 years.

She said, “There’s a reason you’re there. Keep learning as much as you can and save up some money. You’ll know when it’s time.”

She even gave me meditations to listen to whenever I started to get resentful about my job, which I listened to in the bathroom stall at work. I learned to breathe and to look at my co-workers with love, even though I had one foot out the door.

In July 2010, I thought it was time. I had just gotten an assignment to work on an advertising campaign for yet another processed, packaged, artificially-colored snack food for children. I looked at the ingredients of the product and felt sick. I had started training to become a health coach, and I was so fed up with feeling like I was part of the problem with our food system, instead of being part of the solution.

As I learned more and more about health, it got harder to work there. By night, I was writing in my own little blog about wellness, and the things I was learning about in the world of holistic health. By day, I was coming up with advertising campaign ideas to help people lose 10lbs for bikini season by eating more sugary cereal. NO BUENO. No bueno at all.

When I got the new assignment, I knew that if I had to make one more PowerPoint presentation about how we could get the word out to millions of people about pharmaceutical drugs and packaged snack foods…I would probably slam my face into my keyboard. I had to get out of there. Now.

Even though I didn’t have a solid plan in place, I felt it in my body and I was overcome with emotion. I went to my boss and told him I was leaving.

When the news got passed along to the director of sales (my boss’s boss), he called me into his office.

“What are you going to do, Jenny? It’s a harsh world out there. We treat you great here.”

I didn’t say anything, I just sat in his office and cried. Because he had voiced my own fears out loud to me. I had a salary, good health insurance, and I lived in a SWEET apartment in coolest part of Williamsburg, Brooklyn – which this job was funding. His words were my own concerns coming to life. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

Sensing my uncertainty, perhaps, they offered me a $5,000 bonus and Fridays working from home if I would stay 90 more days and train a new person for the job.

I told them I needed some time to think. I was feeling emotionally disheveled. I took the elevator down 16 floors to the lobby and walked outside to the Manhattan sidewalk, leaned against the building with tears brimming in my eyes, and I called Gabby. How could I possibly stay for 90 more days…right?!

“Dude.” she said.

“You are basically getting paid to get an MBA in online business. Right now you’re not feeling a firm foundation with your own revenue streams yet, and you’re walking away without a solid plan. Accept the $5k, put it into your savings, and learn EVERYTHING YOU CAN over the next 90 days. You will use this information to help so many people through your own blog. I know you can’t see it now, but this is a gift you’re being given.”

So I did. I trained a new person in the job and taught them everything I knew about how websites make money (teaching, by the way, makes you learn everything so much deeper!) I looked at it as getting paid to learn, I took Gabby’s advice and smiled at my co-workers and sent them love every day, even when it felt hard. I treated my advertising clients with kindness, laughed with them on phone calls, and I stopped blaming them for the problems I was seeing in the food system. Instead, I vowed to be part of the solution.

In the meantime, Gabby helped me create a fool-proof solid transition plan.

During my nights and weekends, I built new revenue streams for myself that felt very passion and purpose-driven, and that invigorated me.

On my final quit day, I not only had SO much experience (learning AND teaching about online business!) under my belt, but I had also totally transformed my attitude about the job, and built new revenue streams to fully support my transition.

I had Gabby on speed dial for every single day of this transition, and her perspectives and guidance made ALL the difference in my experience. It could have been full of resentment and confusion and freak-outs and “what am I going to do about money!?!?” moments, but instead it felt effortless, smooth, and even fun. During my goodbye party at the office, I actually felt sad to leave, and my boss from that job is, to this day, one of my closest friends. The whole experience was a miracle.

I’m so thankful to have had Gabby’s practical AND soulful guidance during my career transition process, and I can’t imagine what it would have been like without the tools she gave me.

This year I’ll celebrate 6 years of working for myself, and I’ll never forget how the tools Gabby gave me created such a smooth transition period.

On another note, my best friend Jeanne just happened to have the same exact quit date as me, at her corporate job…she was also one of Gabby’s coaching clients at the time! Having a job-transition buddy to check in with was invaluable, and made the whole process more fun, too.

A few months after quitting that job, I ran into a group of my old co-workers in Union Square – including one of my old managers. They congratulated me, told me how proud they were of what I had built, and that they were all readers of my blog. I’ll never forget that.

The reason I’m telling you this story is because the Spirit Junkie Masterclass is all of Gabby’s most PRACTICAL and SOULFUL tools to help you build the career of your dreams – whether you’re in career transition, just starting out, you have a business, or you’re anywhere else on the spectrum. These tools will help you develop a plan for success, and – most importantly, help you shift your attitude and perspective to one of hope and joy and faith — no matter what your situation is!

“When you begin to live in your joy, and you live in a place of purpose, you start to spread that joy organically. That is one of the things I feel is of the highest service to the world. When we live in our passion, we bring forth more light to the world. We can bring more positivity, more change, more light, and more of a voice of love to the world.”

If you’ve read this whole story, wow, thank you! You rule. And if you do decide to enroll in Spirit Junkie Masterclass, please make sure to enroll through this link to get all the incredible bonuses I’ve created for you – they come from my heart, they come from my experience, and they come from my passion for helping people create the life of their dreams.

To love and possibility…
Jenny

For more of my story, read my free ebook: Climbing To The Light

 

PS- I just posted this Lion King related instagram photo, and it just makes me melt. Remember who you are…