Why Didn’t I Quit Sooner?

• I had very specific metrics to hit for both income and runway before pulling the trigger…

• Income – I had a very public goal of hitting $15k/month in reliable income by the age of 35. This had been achieved for several months but it took awhile until the second criteria of runway/mortgage was achieved. 
• Runway/Mortgage – In addition to the public income goal I also had a runway/mortgage goal to ensure I wouldn’t need to play defensively in my online business.

• I was learning a lot – My belief was that this game is a LONG game (just look at the graph to 65 above)! I don’t see me ever not doing something associated with building a business and as a result I believed that the most important thing right now is to improve my abilities and one of the most profitable/systematized corporations in the world certainly had many great learning/development opportunities. My online business is better for the experience I had at my day job and vice versa, I was a better employee because of what I was learning in my online business. The learning curve had started to slow over the last year and that contributed to the decision around timing.

• Enjoyed a lot of my day job – My day job as a plant shutdown manager / maintenance team leader had a lot of great aspects. I worked with very capable people and we were thrown at some very challenging problems with a lot of pressure (such as being on point and responsible for 100+ contractors fixing equipment that was loosing the company $1M/day being down).

• I wasn’t sure if online business would be fulfilling – Online business can be played at different levels and where I was originally playing it was not fully satisfying. Systematically building authority websites is kinda fun from a systems standpoint but it wasn’t really challenging me on multiple levels. However, lately with the addition of some new businesses and partnerships it has become clear that I can be as challenged as I choose to be with my online business and that is exciting!

• Increasing my chances of successfully exiting and not returning was more important than getting out early – My wife and I had many discussions on the right timing to pull the trigger. In the end we both believed that the prize on the table (moving back to our hometown) and staying there was substantial enough that ensuring when we did pull the trigger the chance of success was as high as possible!

• Diversifiable Income – No single point of failure could exist in my business that would ruin it. I wanted to be certain that I had multiple channels of income that would support my family. My business needed to be a multi-legged stool with each leg of income being somewhat separate from the other. If any one leg got chopped out the stool won’t fall!

• Golden Handcuffs – The pile of money between pension, career trajectory and vesting bonuses that has been burned by me leaving is not inconsequential. Although I left on very good terms with the door being open for me to return the amount of money being "burned" certainly had the desired effect of being slow to make the move.

So… How did it feel to Quit?

I enjoyed working with most of the people I worked with and my direct reports and manager were all exceptional so I did feel a little guilty about leaving them. In addition I had made some great friendships over the last 7 years and as part of this change I will be leaving my current city.

However in the end it felt awesome! This was a goal which became an obsession for the last few years and achieving it was incredibly satisfying for everyone involved!

My manager was incredibly understanding and treated me much better than I had expected.

One interesting note was that all the coworkers that I considered as really strong performers were positive/encouraging while many of the “B team” employees were scared for me and couldn’t understand giving up the security!

5 Most Important Lessons I Learned

1. Do the Hard Work - For the first few years online I was in search of the easiest way to make money online. WRONG! When I buckled down and did the “hard” work usually the type that made me uncomfortable results followed! Many nights I wanted to lie down and watch TV exhausted from 12hrs of work, playing with kids for 1-2hrs but if I had I wouldn’t be writing this post.
2. Have a CLEAR Driving Goal & Reason Why – It wasn’t until I was crystal clear on my reason why that the business moved in the right direction quickly.
3. Add Value and Don’t Look for Shortcuts – Shortcuts online don’t exist, stop looking for them! The only way to make money online is to add value. The more value you add the more success you have. No, this rule doesn’t hold 100% of the time but believing it 100% of the time is a recipe for success.
4. Take Massive CONSISTENT Action – Every night/day that you do work, if you are adding value, you are pushing on the flywheel of your business. When you take time off from the work the wheel starts to slow…consistent massive action on an activity that adds value to people is bound to result in success.
5. Don’t Do It Alone! – From my first popular guest posts on other peoples sites (like Spencer Haws) to my most recent partnerships with industry leaders (like Scott Voelker) and previously little-known experts (like Andrew from BrandBuilders.io) it has been clear that building an online business is more fun and successful when working with others. In addition to these relationships my team has been a huge factor in the businesses growth. Some of my team members have been with me since the start including some whose income has gone from $1/hr to $7/hr and another who named me as a god parent…

3 New Concerns I Now Need to Manage

With changes come new challenges, to be honest these I am afraid of and I won’t know if I overcome them or not for a couple years. I hope AuthorityWebsiteIncome and my monthly reports will help me have the discipline to ensure these fears don’t become a reality.

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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?