Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome Back to episode 39 of Working Towards Our

Purpose and got another episode for you today.

Want to talk about me actually quitting?

But first I want to thank everybody for the

positive feedback on the first episode. It was helpful and

encouraging to me because like I alluded to in the first

episode, these are kind of unedited and

you know, well, they are unedited and just completely raw. So

I did listen back to a little bit of it and I heard a lot

of ums. So I will try to get better with that as time

goes on. But I just did one.

But anyways, yeah, I want to thank you for the support and then also

for the support of my single that came out about a week

ago. And I think that the topic of

the last episode of being more

sort of upfront with what I'm doing and sharing it

has actually led to some results. And I

think, you know, out of the six singles that I've released this year,

that one had the most listened. So kind of an obvious thing,

but I think a difficult thing to do

when you're trying to share something that you created and you can

feel a little self conscious about it or, you know, maybe feel like

you're not good enough. So I do appreciate all that. And if you haven't listened

to it, I'll leave the link in the show notes for this episode.

But little update. I have quit since the

last episode. I did put in my two weeks and I have a handful

of days left. So I

did want to talk a little bit about the process of that because it was

still difficult and it was still hard and I knew that

it was something that I needed to do and I wanted to do.

But it's still just always difficult to quit something

and to sort of make it permanent. Because once

you send your two weeks or once you say you're quitting, you can't really take

that back. So it's kind of the ultimate test of

your decision and what you're believing in. So

to take you back, I think it was two weeks ago

at this point, Friday or something, I don't know, not important. But

I log in in the morning and I request for a meeting

from two of my superiors. And I

waited all day to get a response and nobody

responded to me. And I was kind of getting worried

and being like, oh, maybe I should just do it another week or maybe I

should postpone it. But I didn't do that

and instead I quit via email, which

I didn't really want to do, but I kind of had

no other option because my day was coming to an end

and I hadn't heard any response. So that was the only way

that I saw was the possibility of me putting in my two

weeks. Um, and it was on a Friday. And I was

kind of worried about it all weekend because, you know, you say

something, you, you quit your job, you change, you

know how you're going to move forward, and then there's just no reaction. And

I don't know, you know, what their response is or if they were upset or

not upset. And none of that should care, but. Or none of that

should matter. But I did care. I didn't want to.

I don't know, I guess it's just always sort of maybe old people

pleasing tendencies, but you don't want to make anybody, like, upset

or like, mad at what you're doing. And I think part

of me was looking for a little bit of the approval of, you know, it's

okay that you're doing that. Not sure, but either way,

I went through the whole weekend kind of nervous to log in on Monday.

And then when I did finally log in on Monday, all this

anticipation had built and I was like, really not looking forward to

it. And I log in and the email that

I sent wasn't even responded to. And I just got a simple DM that said

like, or a simple IM that said like,

thanks for all your hard work, we look forward to a smooth

transition, or something like that. And I was like, oh, all right. Well,

that wasn't that bad. So it just kind of this

thing, I guess I built up all weekend. Oh, and I left

one crucial detail out of quitting. So I

said that I sent an IM to try to set

up a meeting. Well, when I first logged in, I was like, really

nervous and I had the IM typed and it took me like an hour and

a half to actually send it. And again, this is something I

knew I wanted to do and I was ready to do

it. But it was just so hard to click the IM because

I guess that felt like the turning point. Like, once I click that I ask

for a meeting, then there's no turning back. And

so I was literally just like sitting, staring at my computer,

like, thinking through, yes, this is what I want to do,

just trying to convince myself. And I was kind of like pacing

and going into the other room and stuff. And I

remember, like, sort of like vaguely asking

for like a sign from the universe or something like that, but then just like

forgetting about it. And then literally, like five minutes later, my

close friend Texted me and was like, hey, like, how's it going?

Are you doing it today? And then to me, that was like, oh,

there's that. Like, okay, this is the right direction. I need to be doing

this. And then as soon as I got that text, I clicked it and sent

the IM and proceeded to not hear back for the rest of the day.

But I don't know, it was a little bit of. I

think that was important because I sort of asked for

something and then got something

as a sign or an indication

that I was moving in the right direction. I do believe

that there's lots of signs out there, and

if you can kind of tune into your intuition, I think there's.

There's always these kind of subtle things that kind of can point you in the

right direction. Um, but I did just want to say that because I think that

that was pretty. It seems almost, like, silly at this point now to talk about

it, but in the moment when it was happening and I was, like, super nervous,

I sort of, like, put that out there and then got a text. And, like,

it was very prominent that, like, I was making the right decision. So

it gave me a lot of ease to be able to, like, actually go through

with the quitting. Um, and, yeah, hopefully that wasn't all

over the place, but. And you followed that. But I also did want to

talk about, like, previous quittings that I've had. Um, I've

gone through a couple quits, I guess, in my career.

Um, notably, the biggest ones were at my

engineering jobs. My first big engineering job.

I remember I wanted to quit because, again, I just. I felt like

I wasn't really being valued. I was more so, like,

kind of bitter at that time. And I, like, I wanted to stick it to

my boss and, like, you know, the sort of I'm going to leave and

they're not going to know what to do sort of attitude. And when

I did actually quit, I learned, like, a really big lesson in

that. And, like, I went to go to my boss office,

I sat down at his desk, I gave him my. This little letter I typed

up, and there was just, like, no response from him. He was just like,

okay, great. And I think

that was very disappointing for me because I

wanted him to, you know, be, like, upset

that I was leaving or something. And,

yeah, it just kind of was not what I was looking for.

But then I kind of learned the lesson of, um, you

can't be quitting to, like, you know, get back at

somebody who didn't treat you well or to make them sort

of like uncomfortable because it's not, it's not going to work like that. Especially with

a big corporation where, you know, they could just fill you

in with another person who's graduating from college.

It wasn't really something that like, probably

cared to him at all. And, you know, just bigger picture, I

shouldn't be acting based off of how I want others to feel.

So luckily for me, I was quitting also for myself. But

that was kind of eye opening that it's never really fun to quit. It's never

really a good feeling. I don't think, at least in my

experience. I've never quit and then felt

good as far as getting back.

I felt good as far as me moving forward and the direction that I meant

to, but not so much as far as like getting back at someone. And I

don't think that's like ever a really good reason to quit.

But the second quit, bigger quit that I had was the

second engineering firm that I worked at. And this was during COVID And

I didn't know how to quit at all because we were working from

home and now it's normal. But like,

at that point I had never, like quit virtually before and I, like, hadn't seen

my boss in months. And I remember

also sending him an IM and being like, hey, can you. Can I call you

real quick about something? And that was super nerve

wracking. I remember like, literally like shaking my hands were

shaking a little bit because I was like so nervous to quit. But

in that instance, it was actually kind of a really nice,

A nice quit because he was very receptive and he was supportive.

And I really did not expect that from him because

I kind of like put him in a box of like, who he was as

a person and just thought he wouldn't understand. And

I was quitting to like go pursue a business and stuff. And I thought he

would have negative, you know, input for that, but. But he was actually really

positive and supportive and. And that was really kind

of surprising to me at the time. But

yeah, just. And again, similar to the quit that I just had.

It was like just complete non.

What's the word? Just like non engaging

that I feel like it's just been like kind of ignored

and acting like maybe it's not happening or something, which is

strange to me. But nonetheless

quitting for my own reasons and not to

get back anybody or anything like that.

Let me just plug my computer in. It's dying. Okay.

So, yeah, I think the moral of

the story is that it's never for me, it's never been

easy to quit or never been fun to quit because I

guess you're always kind of putting somebody at an inconvenience they have to fill your

position and this and that. But

no matter what the reasons are, I think the most important thing is

following the thing that you believe

in and what you think is best for you. And I think it can be

really easy to get stuck in a job. I think this job that I just

quit, I was probably doing for too long after I knew that I

didn't really need to be there

or want to be there or wasn't being helpful for me in my life

anymore. So, yeah, it's never

really easy to quit. And I think that's why it always

seems like such a daunting task. And I've known people

that I've worked with in the past that just felt like they couldn't make

a change at all because they had been there for so long. And

I think that's a part of it, too. Like, the longer that you're there, the

more it's within your routine, and it seems like it's

harder to make a change. But

I don't know. Not sure where I'm going with that. But.

So, yeah, the next thing that I want to talk about, too, is, like, I

was thinking about, like, well, what allowed me to quit this time? Like, what did

I do to make myself quit or to

realize that I did want to quit? And I think it had a lot to

do with the three books that I was reading at the time. And

I was reading these. These three books kind of about various

different topics. The first one here is by an author, Graham

Cochran. It's called Rebel Find Yourself by Not following the

Crowd. And that was a really

great book as far as, like,

talking about, like, not doing things just to kind of fit in with society

and thinking about what it is that you actually want in your

life and how you want to live your life and how to make that

happen. And he had a lot of kind of quick

exercises at the end of the chapter to try to, like, think about

your future life and how you want to be living it. And it

was really helpful for me to, alongside these other two books, to

really know, like, for sure that I

didn't want to be doing this anymore and I need to make a change now.

The second book was the Artist's Way, which is

a book about creativity and how you can get

back to your creativity if you're someone who was

creative. Maybe when you were younger and kind of decided

that artistic endeavors weren't important or maybe they

don't pay you. So you kind of stopped doing them. And it was

really, it's kind of a like a set UP

as a 12 week program. You're supposed to like read a chapter a week for

12 weeks and by the end of it you're supposed to sort of be

transformed into thinking of yourself as an artist again

and being able to do creative things. And

there's a lot of exercises in that book too. I did not do all of

them, but the ones that I did do were

super helpful. And there was two sort of

exercises that, that I'm going to continue to keep doing.

One of them is called Morning Pages, which is kind of just journaling when you

get up to kind of get everything out of your head and all the negativity

out of your head and to start to hear what your

subconscious is saying by just.

They basically want you to write three full pages every morning,

which is a lot handwriting. But I found

it really helpful to like get through the negative stuff and

like discard all the stuff that's negative and not helpful. And then to

start to think about like, well, what do I want? Or what are these

inklings that I maybe ignore a lot of the times.

So that is been really helpful as far as like thinking about

how I wanted to quit and you know, I would like be a

page in and then I would start to think about like well what, what is

it that I want to do? What do I want to use with my energy

and time? And is this job that I'm working now supportive

of that or not? Um, so it, it was really helpful in that.

Um, and then the other helpful thing was

called the artist date, which is basically like you take

yourself on a date somewhere once a week and kind of just allow yourself to

be playful and like free

and to, you know, the, the point of it is to try to like

allow yourself to have fun and be

enjoying of the moment. So then you can be used to doing

that. Because I think, well, you know, as Julia the author says,

yeah, the Artist Ways is by Julia Cameron and

she mentioned that like a lot of times you just don't even think that like

you can kind of deserve that. So just taking like a

short and it doesn't have to be like a restaurant or anything, it could just

be like in the park, something that's free, a coffee

shop, but, but going and kind of like having some time for

yourself to really again bring out who you are as

A person and where you want to go and spend your time and energy.

And then the last book, which was like, life changing

for me almost. And I don't mean to

sound dramatic, but it was like, a really awesome book for me. It's called the

Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And

there's just some really powerful ideas in there

that I won't talk about. All the ones in this episode, I

think I'll probably have specific episodes on those topics.

But yeah, it was a really, really good book about, like,

envisioning who I am as a person, who I

want to be, what I'm good at, what I want to

be contributing to society and to others, and

how I can use my talents and

excel in that instead of, like, fighting against the things that

maybe I think I should be doing. So in combination

to. To bring all those three books together, I was reading them all at once

and kind of doing these exercises and thinking about, like, what I want to be

doing. And it kind of gave me this

idea or path or direction of

what I want to be doing and where I

want to go and who I want to help. And

slowly but surely I'm kind of like forming this idea and I'm not going to

share at this second, but.

Well, maybe I will. What the heck? I think

articulating it and talking about it probably will help to formulize. To

formula. Formula. Formulate. That's the word, Formulate

it a little bit better. But, yeah, I think

finding my past experiences and

the things that maybe I'm good at and being

creative and thinking about how I want to

work in the future and how I want to help people. I

think the direction that I'm moving in is kind of the idea of

this podcast really is to

help people move in a direction

that they're kind of called to or are meant to do, or,

you know, their purpose in life

and to think about, like, basically helping a previous

version of myself. Like when I was in my

engineering career, I was just confused and I had this feeling of I

wanted to do more, but I didn't know what to do with it and I

didn't know what it meant. And I was just

really frustrated all the time. And then I found this business

idea and I put everything into that and it didn't quite work out.

And just a lot of learning lessons along the way. And I think that, like,

if I. If I were to, like, choose who I want to help, I want

to help people who are in that situation where they're

confused, but they want more, but they aren't quite sure how to get

there. I think I want to help people to be able to live in

their purpose, because to me, that's purposeful. If I can

help somebody do what they're meant to do. And I think that just has,

like, a butterfly effect on positively impacting the world.

And I think positivity is a big thing for me, like,

trying not to play into negativity and creating

positivity and encouragement and, yeah, I don't

know, I think moving in that direction. Not quite

sure how that's going to work out as far as, like,

logistically or, like, how to monetize or whatever.

I guess coaching is, like, the first thing that comes to mind, but I kind

of have a weird feeling about that word, coaching,

because I don't think that, like, I know better than anybody, but I would like

to be able to encourage people to believe in themselves. That's. That's, like, the thing

that I want to do. So not quite sure

what that is yet, but

investing into learning more about

these topics and reading these kinds of books and investing into this

podcast. I have committed, or yeah, I guess I have committed to

releasing an episode a week and just fully investing into

that and seeing where it goes. And,

yeah, if that made any sense, if you're still following along with me,

that's kind of the idea that I'm chasing at this point. And

with also, you know, there's other endeavors that I'm investing into, like my

music. I also have a business, a farmer's

market business that maybe I'll talk about that I'm doing with a friend.

And yeah, all right, now I

got to conclude this episode, so didn't expect to go there, but I did

anyways, and in the sake of

being forthcoming and vulnerable.

So, yeah, I think getting back to what I was trying to say was like,

what got me to quit, because I think, you know, that's an important

thing. Like, people maybe know they want to quit, but how do you do it?

And I think these. These three books were just really encouraging

for me to be able to think of what my life.

What I want my life to be, and knowing that this thing that I'm doing

right now is not supporting that. So then it becomes

easier to do it. It's like, okay, this isn't supporting future

me. So future me is not really going to care about this, you know, in

a couple months from now. So I need to just separate myself and

free up all that energy that I'm putting towards it.

And then the biggest thing, too, I think, to put a

little bit more tangible, you know,

reasoning behind this, I think, too. Another thing that I've been thinking a lot about

is values. And, like, what

are my values? What values do

I want to live by? And it came

from one of the books. I can't remember quite which one yet, but.

And that's kind of what. What the.

The reason is that, like, I'm not fitting in at this job,

right? It's not like they're. It's not like the company's

a bad company or there's bad people. It's just a

misalignment of values. The values that they have and the values that I

have are completely different. So we're never going to be happy.

We're never going to be able to really get along

without butting heads or have the resistance.

And I think that thinking about that really

made it make sense to me in my head

to think about what my values are and to be like, okay, these values are

very different from the values of this person that I'm working for. So

that kind of helped make it a little bit easier for me to quit, too.

So, yeah, I just wanted to state that and to

maybe encourage you to think about your values and what are your values,

and I think it's really important to think about

those. And it's really hard. Like, I tried writing my

values down, what they were, and it's hard to just, like,

say what they are like, because you have them in your head, but it's hard

to actually do that. So I think

I'll keep working on mine and try to refine them more.

And to just be thinking about them, I think, is also a positive thing

as far as, like, living a life that's aligned with your values. Um,

but. But yeah, hopefully. Hopefully that all made

sense, and maybe that was helpful for some of you.

But in conclusion, for this episode,

I did just want to talk about the quitting

process and mostly say that it was also. It was

still. It was, like, hard. It was not easy to do,

to try to empathize with maybe somebody who's

been. Who wants to quit a job and feels like it's impossible.

I think it's always gonna be hard, a hard thing, but in the

end, it's always a good feeling. Like, I've gotten a lot of

signs that have

kind of shown me that, like, this was the right decision. So that's been helpful

and encouraging and, yeah, just really excited to keep

doing more of what I want to be doing and

investing into this new idea and investing into this podcast.

So, yeah, I will

be writing reviews about these three books because I think that they're really

helpful. And I will be posting them on the website and

workingtowardsthurpurpose.com and I will also be posting them on Substack,

also investing more into my writing these days. And

you can find that on substack. Com

if you've never used the platform before. It's kind of like a

blogging site that's also like a newsletter. So you can, like subscribe to

people and when they write a new blog, you get a newsletter email.

So I think I'll be doing some book reviews on that too,

for books that, like, are really impactful for me. And I'm working on those

three right now. And when they're posted, you can find them there.

And I will leave a link for my substack in the show

notes also, so if you're interested, you can click it and

yeah, I think that's all I got for today. Did feel a little all over

the place and chaotic, but hopefully it makes sense

because once again, I will not be editing. So I will see

you on a next episode real soon. I hope you all

have a great week. Thanks,

Sam.