1 Year Quit Anniversary – What Has Changed?
It has been one year since I left the day job and pursued my online business activities full time.
I wrote a very in depth post on how I got to the point of quitting my day job – https://websiteincome.com/quit-my-job/
This post is going to cover…
How Have My Results Been Since I Left the Day Job?
I will break the results down into 3 parts…
- Have I achieved my 2 main reasons for quitting?
- Financial Results since I quit?
- Have I successfully mitigated my concerns about quitting?
My Main Reasons for Quitting:
I had 2 MAIN reasons for quitting…
- See What I Can Do on My Own – Online entrepreneurship has a lot of opportunities I am excited to explore. I may or may not regret this decision but I am 100% certain if I never took a shot at building something on my own I would always regret it! (from my post 1 year ago)
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- Results after 1 year – I am definitely aligning the pieces of my business between projects and people on my team to be able to make a bigger impact. I would say that I haven’t achieved as much here as I would like but believe the combination of building an amazing team and getting heavily involved in some BIG projects has me moving all pieces of my business in the right way to make a big impact.
- Ski/Bike/Hike With My Family – My oldest child will be 36years old if I were to retire at 65 (3 years older than I am now) and the number of hours I work per day between now and then were not going to go down based on the path I was on. But the main reason is I simply wanted to ski, bike and hike with my family in my hometown! (from my post 1 year ago)
Results after 1 year – I have without a doubt massively increased the amount of time I get to spend with my family since leaving the day job. Now being home routinely between 3:30 & 4:00 vs 6:30 (on good days) we are able to do an outing almost every day depending on the season (beach, hike, bike or skiing). Plus flexibility to take time off for activities whenever it makes sense for the family. I do believe I still work too much to have a proper balance on the health side and see opportunities for improvement here.
Overall both of the main reasons I wanted to leave my day job to pursue my online business full time have been moving in the right direction. I am especially proud of the amount of time I get to spend with my family.
Financial Results:
“enjoying” working online full time is certainly great but how have the businesses results been? They have been solid, hitting my stretch targets (barely) and having a lot of success with a few new projects.
Have I successfully mitigated my concerns about quitting?
I had been working insane hours (80+ combined day and online job) and pushing myself VERY hard in the couple years before I left the day job. I had some concerns that the loosening of my schedule and the loss of a single clear goal would negatively impact my business. Here are my thoughts on the results…
- Getting Mentally Soft – For the last few years my schedule has been a little bit insane. Approx schedule… wake 6am, leave for work 6:30am, work 7am-5:30/6:00, Home at 6:00/6:30, family time until 7:30/8:00, work from 8pm-11pm(sometimes much later). Following this schedule was TOUGH and it, like training for anything, resulted in me being able to be disciplined about working. Will I now go soft since I won’t be working the same number of hours?
- Results After Year 1 – I would say I definitely have gotten softer. My crazy dedication to working EVERY night no matter how tired/sick I was has slipped. Now I take nights (even the occasional day) off. Some would say this isn’t a bad thing but I do think I am getting softer as a result!
- No Single Inspiring/Driving Goal – Achieving my goal of leaving the day job had become an obsession and now my current goals are less tangible… will my business not have a stimulating goal and as a result be directionless?
- Results After Year 1 – The goals have become a little more project/business specific. There is a central overall goal for myself which I don’t discuss publicly but am working towards. Because of the new focus on building a business I am continually inspired to build something awesome.
- Playing Not to Lose – For those that play/watch sports we all have experienced/seen a team take the lead and then play not loose vs playing to win. Will I now play not to loose vs take bigger swings?
- Results After Year 1 – This one I am very happy to say is not a problem. I would say I am becoming less risk adverse and need to have the controls in place to make sure I don’t risk too much. Over the last 8 months I have put more money to work, hired more staff and started more projects.
What have I done?
Here are the major changes I have done over the last year…
- Grew my in house team from 0 to 2 full time and 3 summer interns
- Started a couple big new projects
- ContentRefined.com
- One investment vehicle I will talk about more later
- Increased my rate of site building
- Focused more on education and extending my time horizon from only a few years to much longer
Summary
I can say with certainty that leaving my day job was a great decision for my family and so far 1 year out my pocket book as well.
However, the fears I had around getting soft and not having a crystal clear goal I don’t think I have sufficiently mitigated. But overall I am extremely grateful for the world we live in where running this type of business is possible. The ability to both throw myself at a business and not sacrfice time with my family is pretty amazing I am extremely grateful for that!
If you are working towards a similar goal please know it is possible and can be done faster then it took me 7years to reach. BUT… it is not easy… I want to stress that it took me 7+years from when I first started and ~3 years after I got serious about building my business to hit the numbers I needed to hit. Good luck to anyone looking to do the same!
Great to see you have no ill effects from quitting the twice monthly paycheck addiction. Playing to Lose and risk aversion are serious concerns, but the ability to focus your efforts pays big time.
Recharging your batteries and taking some time off will also increase productivity and happiness great stuff Jon!
Thanks Ian, it has been fun!
Thank you for sharing. Very inspiring. I have more or less the same goals and same concerns. I’m only 1 year down the road and really hope it’d take me less than 7 years… thanks again.
Hi Dan, I only dabbled at building my business for the first 3-4years and then got obsessed. So I am sure you can cut it down.
Congrats to you. There are very few people that would achieve what you did achieve. Go and celebrate this with your family and be proud. As usual, thanks for your great posts.
I’ve been following you and I can’t believe you’re only 1 year of quitting your job. It seems that you have a lot of project done in such a short time. High productivity. Congrats. Wish you the best…
Thanks Argo.
I started down the real estate path, however, it is very capital intensive. Only recently discovered this as a way to quit my 9-5 job. I’m about 3 months into it and making some progress, but not as I like. I noticed that it really takes a lot of time to keep a job and build this on the side. I was thinking about taking 3 months away from work and put everything I have to see it at least take off. I can go up to 6 months without income. What would you recommend for someone like myself? Thanks.
Hi Henri, it is very tough to make a personal recommendation… what I can say is that for me I was very risk-adverse and waited for a long time to leave the day job. Hindsight being 20-20 I am not sure if I wish I left earlier.
Too wonderful, within a year you have made great changes. Congratulations
dear Jon, your story seriously impacted me in a good way. It really motivates me to work harder and what I choose to do (working full time and do side hustle to build websites) is definitely worth actualizing.
Your goals and mindsets which are described on this page to become an entrepreneur are really touching me as they are simple but super honest. Thank you for your article.
Hi Jon, just come across your site and I am really impressed with you. Yes what you’ve done but your focus, work ethic and goal setting is impressive congratulations. I am 55 need a retirement income and want to hit $12k on 5 years. Was thinking of the affiliate route and also lookin at FBA. If you were starting out now what would you do to get you through to say $10k per month. I hear Spencer talk about authority sites but they seem to take too long to se decent revenue. Would be interested in what you would do if you started again tomorrow. Cheers