I Quit Google to Go Solo - Was It the Biggest Mistake of My Life?
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I recently crossed the 3-month mark of being self-employed and thankfully, so far, I still believe it's been the right decision. While leaving my 9-5 software engineering job was a difficult decision, working for myself has netted many benefits thus far. I wanted to discuss them in the hopes it might help someone else considering pursuing self-employment.
The first benefit I feel each day is being able to wander. When I initially quit, I knew that it would take time for me to truly understand how I would like to delegate my time and attention. Three months later, it's not perfect, but slowly, the vision of what I'd like to do is coming more and more into focus. When working a traditional job, I find this is much more difficult to do effectively. Your job constantly competes for your attention, which is not exactly conducive to deeply reflecting on whether what you're doing day-to-day brings you joy, is fulfilling, and is helping you accomplish larger life goals.
My 9-5 jobs felt a lot like swimming deep in the ocean. I could swim in the right general direction and trust that I'd eventually arrive at my destination, but not without a few challenges. For example, it's difficult to effectively swim directly to a destination when there are many variables like weather, waves, riptides, and more that you can't control. At some point, you're at the mercy of the ocean the same way that you're at the mercy of a company. Swimming towards some far-off destination can also be difficult for its own reasons. If you're swimming to land, initially, that might seem like a great destination. As far as you can tell from a distance, a small remote island with soft sand and palm trees looks great, but as you approach, you might come to the realization that either:
1. What you're so desperately swimming towards isn't what you wanted, or
2. Worse, the sand isn't actually that soft and the taste of coconut, as delicious as it may be, gets old.
Contrasting this with self-employment, I find it much more like having teleported myself to that island. Instead of swimming to land, I chartered an expensive, "risky" boat to scoop me out of the water and drop me on the beach. The benefit is that I can quickly explore the island and what it has to offer and reverse my decision if necessary. Self-employment has its own challenges, but it's allowed me to wade in the shallows with both feet still firmly planted in the sand. At my own volition, I can change tide pools, further explore my current area, or leave the water altogether.
Another massive benefit of self-employment I've enjoyed is the ability to work on the highest leverage activity each day and, depending on the day, it may change. This freedom not only ensures that I do what's best for my different ventures, but it also allows me to context switch in a way that I enjoy – bouncing between activities helps me recharge for when I eventually return to a task. This approach is especially helpful when building software, as I've found that time away from a problem tends to solve the problem.
Perhaps the best benefit I've experienced since beginning to work for myself is deeply understanding the agency that I have in my work. If I do something this morning that directly benefits myself or my businesses, I can personally reap the rewards that afternoon. Compared to corporate jobs, this is night and day. At 9-5 jobs, something you deliver this quarter might not be rewarded until the end of the year or during the next performance cycle. Similarly, for things like promotions, it's not uncommon to need to perform at the next level for several quarters before being eventually rewarded for that effort and impact.
A misconception about working for yourself is that what you're doing needs to work immediately. It doesn't, and in truth, it probably won't. What I'd suggest instead is looking at the trajectory of what you're doing. It's similar to a plane taking off – so long as a plane has enough acceleration and runway, it's not a question of if the plane will take off, but when. Thankfully, both look promising for me.
I'm excited for the next three months of self-employment. Now, I feel my feet are firmly planted in the sand. I might not be able to see exactly what's beneath them, but I feel confident I like this beach.
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