Month: October 2011

[Read parts 1 and 2 of this story]

I had two choices.

I could either make some noise about the situation and tap into my network of people in the company with influence, or I could roll with the punches. It was a tough call and I was battling some conflicting motivations, so I decided to enlist some help.

Seeking counsel

A mentor of mine within the company is a Senior Executive, and I decided to seek his feedback on the situation. Despite his hectic schedule, he always made time to chat. Let’s call him Craig.

I caught Craig up on the situation in Pittsburgh and how it was a little out of my control at that point. He made himself available in case he needed to “make a call” on my behalf, but I didn’t want to involve him in my episode of The Real World: Accenture.

We talked through the pros and cons of leaving, how I might be a better fit for a smaller company, and about working for Accenture in general. Craig was connected to a few guys who ran a small consulting firm in Atlanta, and offered to make an introduction.

I didn’t want to trade one hell for another, so I politely declined.

A lateral move

A few weeks back, I had seen an internal email about a group focused on social media best practices for companies. While I’m not a social media guy^tm per se, seeing an Accenture website running WordPress (!) was encouraging (it contained information on integrating the Facebook and Twitter APIs into projects for client engagements, developer resources, and the like).

I mentioned this group to Craig, and we talked about me moving into a new position within the company (a lot more difficult than one might imagine). We also talked about what would be involved in creating a position for me.

This made me slightly uncomfortable since I was almost certain that I would make a full transition out of the company that year regardless, and I shared with Craig that I’d feel an obligation to stick with it if they did something like that for me.

I’ll never forget his response. To paraphrase, Craig said that as influential as he’d like to think he is, and with as much value as he’d like to think he adds to the company, Accenture would still keep on trucking if he didn’t show up for work in the morning.

That really stuck with me, and I share it whenever friends who feel a sense of obligation to their company use that as a reason for staying where they are.

The inevitable

We chatted a bit more about the craziest idea: me going into business for myself full-time. Craig asked me the tough questions that any mentor would ask, and he quickly determined from my answers and conviction that I was serious about making the leap.

As a matter of fact, he stopped drawing on the white board in his office, sat down, and make himself available for whatever support I might need as I made the upcoming transition.

He knew what time it was.

Onward

I decided to take the drama as a blessing in disguise. Whereas before I felt a lack of motivation on account of my comfortable position (being able to take weeks off without pay is an odd luxury), I suddenly had all the motivation I needed.

I let my Career Counselor and HR Rep know that I intended to resign, and fired off the appropriate email. There was an eerie calm in the weeks to come, as I had prepared myself mentally for the upcoming freedom and felt a burden — years in the making — lift from my life.

The actual transition to self-employment was a bit anti-climactic. Friends I made online who caught wind of me quitting generally responded with, “that’s great man, but I thought you worked for yourself already.”

Nice.

Speaking, consulting, and joining the circus

In the weeks that followed, I transitioned quite naturally to full-time freelancing. I started getting the proper rest, cleaning up my diet, and working out on a regular basis. These changes alone gave me a new lease on life, but my freedom is what I truly relished.

Business was good. There was a steady stream of work, I was getting better every day, and I couldn’t have been more sure that I made the right decision.

My friend Mike asked me if I’d speak at an upcoming conference, that he was organizing, and I happily obliged. Attending the conference were some fine folks from The Creative Circus, who eventually hired me to redesign their site.

In an interesting turn of events, they asked me if I’d be interested in teaching a basic web design/dev course there. I had an interest in teaching and they needed the help, so I agreed. It was (mostly) great.

Meeting Seth Godin

I met Ishita through Pam Slim a few months back, and helped her with a redesign of her online magazine. (Interestingly, I helped her with another redesign of the site today.) On one of our first conversations, Ishita casually mentioned that she worked with Seth Godin and asked me if I had ever heard of him.

As a matter of fact, I had purchased tickets to see him in Atlanta. That was Ishita’s next question, and she was going to invite me to the event if I wasn’t already going.

The event rolled around, and I attended a small dinner with Seth, Ishita, and some volunteers the night before the event. To say that I was nervous would be a gross understatement, which is highly uncommon for me. I’m not into hero worship, but I had (and have) a healthy respect for Seth.

During the dinner, we all took turns sharing what we were working on, and Seth provided some feedback on how we might make it better. It was great. Ishita tells me I was super-quiet during the evening and didn’t really get into it, but I never really liked Ishita anyway.

The first domino falls

This post changed my life.

Reading it significantly altered the course of my life’s trajectory, more specifically. I remember thinking to myself that I didn’t quit my job so I could live a boring life. The day the submission was due (well…the wee hours of the morning, technically), I sat down at my computer and cranked away on my submission.

The questions were ridiculous, and I had a great time applying. I didn’t have any experience in the publishing industry, but I didn’t consider that to be a bad thing. I checked my application for typos, took a deep breath, and clicked Submit.

You all know the punchline by now: I was hired and moved to NYC less than a month later. My life has been a roller-coaster since then, in the best possible way.

Meanwhile, in Harlem…

I’ve been finished with The Domino Project for four months now, and I work full-time on 1) helping authors sell more books online, and 2) making websites faster.

This has been an improbable journey, and I don’t even recognize my life anymore. I’m planning my first international trip (that’s right, I’ve never left the country), I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing, and I have the freedom to come and go as I please.

The adventure has been much less about quitting my job as it has to do with living life. I have friends who are killing it in Corporate America, and they love what they do. It wasn’t a good fit for me, and I’ve had countless discussions with people who experienced the misery that I did.

My passion for freedom and the desire for others to be liberated from the confines of a miserable existence is culminating in the Free Minds Movement, where Pam and I are thinking through how to tackle the issue head-on.

I don’t know what these next few months are going to look like, but I see some bright days ahead.

[Read parts 1 and 2 of this story]

[Read parts 1 and 3 of this story]

I flew into Pittsburgh that week a broken man.

It was an odd combination of shame, relief, and fatigue, but the anxiety was gone. I actually felt better than I had felt in months since the burden of my secret unhappiness was lifted.

It was in these moments that I started to feel a new outlook taking root: one that would no longer allow me to subject myself to continued unhappiness ever again.

The week was clipping along at a nice pace, and it was made easier because (irrespective of my narrowly-avoided mental breakdown…) I was flying to Phoenix that weekend for LiftOff with Pam Slim and Charlie Gilkey.

I know, right?

I was close to my teammate Chris during this time, so I filled him in on the fact that I’d be taking a week or two off, the fact that I almost died, etc.

Chris was younger than me and relatively new to the company, but he was a rising star on the project and I had no doubts that he could hold down the fort in my absence.

The world’s most awkward conversation

My manager at the time was a tall, headstrong, middle eastern man. He was a no-nonsense guy with many years of experience in corporate IT consulting. Let’s call him Fahim.

Because that’s his name.

We scheduled some time to chat about what was going on, and we commandeered an empty conference room when the time came. I took a deep breath and tried to explain the high points of what I was experiencing, and how I felt like some time off might be best.

Fahim was nodded understandingly as I meandered through my thoughts. When it was his turn to speak, Fahim shared how many consultants had felt the way I was feeling at the time. He cautioned that some of them make the mistake of quitting on a whim and have to come crawling back for a job a few months later.

“I’d apply to work at Starbucks before I came crawling back to this misery,” I said to myself. It wasn’t a knock on Starbucks, either. I just hated what I did for a living.

As we were talking, the lights in the conference room went out. The door was closed, so it was pitch black. As I prepared to fumble towards the door, Fahim casually dismissed the situation and instructed me to continue talking.

O_O

So we pressed on. In complete darkness. Nothing awkward about that at all. Thankfully, the power came back shortly thereafter, and we were able to continue the train wreck under the fluorescent illumination of the conference room.

The agreement is that I would take two weeks off and keep everyone posted about what I intended to do after that.

My life as a traveling consultant was typically spent onsite (see: in a different city) four days per week, with me returning home (or at least going somewhere else for business or pleasure) on Thursday.

And as I mentioned, I was scheduled to attend LiftOff, so I departed for Phoenix instead of Atlanta that week.

LiftOff Retreat

This transformational experience of LiftOff deserves its own post, so I’ll just give you the highlights:

• I’m still in touch with the folks I met during the retreat.
• I can trace between $10K and $20K of revenue that came as a result of my attendance (specifically, business derived from projects I came across through other attendees).
• When I look back at videos of myself at LiftOff (shattered emotionally, 30lbs. heavier, and a bit unsure of myself), I see a completely different person.
• There wasn’t anything in particular that I took away from the experience that helped me, so much as gaining the support system of crazy people who were in my corner. That’s all I needed.
• During LiftOff, I booked three new clients.
• Less than a month later, two of the clients had bailed on account of money issues.
• The third client had plenty of money, but not enough time to stick with the work we were doing, so I fired myself.
• The plane ride home from LiftOff is when I decided that I was definitely going to quit.

The ramp up

Upon returning to Atlanta, I started dipping into my Paid Time Off (PTO) so I could get my head together, ramp up business, and generate enough revenue to kiss my job goodbye. I also calculated what my emergency fund looked like in the event that I needed to live off of the savings.

During this PTO, I was able to work from home without being bothered with project stuff, I had time to focus on my web design/dev work, and the stage was set to take off like a rocket.

How did it go you, you ask?

Not too well. As it turns out, I picked up a lot of bad habits over the years. The most sinister one — an issue that I have to be mindful of to this day — is sitting in front of the computer even when I’m not doing anything productive.

This is dangerous is because a full-time job and steady paycheck is not (generally) impacted by an intermittent lack of productivity. Self-employment, however, is completely tied to personal productivity.

As a matter of fact, I’ve found that success as a freelancer and entrepreneur is almost completely correlated with self-awareness and self-discipline. There is no separation of how you feel and how well you work.

I took on a few projects, but they languished. I had neither the motivation nor the discipline to knock them out like I needed to. I think it’s because I was still suckling from the corporate teet and not actually in danger of starving to death.

Not yet, anyway.

The drama

Throughout my time off, I had weekly contact with my manager, HR Representative, and Career Counselor. I let them know how things were going, kept them apprised of my timeline (when I thought I might be back working), etc.

Fahim and I made tentative plans to chat one day, and for whatever reason, neither of us picked up the phone or cared enough to reschedule.

I wasn’t too terribly interested in talking to him about the situation in the first place, so I let it ride. What happened the following week however, was completely unexpected.

I got a call from my HR Representative asking me if I had been looking for projects. Perplexed, I reminded her that I was still technically on the project in Pittsburgh, and that I was just taking some time off. She informed me that I was being rolled off the project.

As it turns out, Fahim took me not calling as me not wanting to be on the project anymore. Instead of confirming this with me, he mentioned it to the person responsible for staffing the project, and this set off a chain of events that I lacked the political influence (you don’t think success in Corporate America is about skills, do you?) to derail.

Fabulous.

I felt like my career was being hijacked. My conversation with Fahim resulted in the obligatory apology and acknowledgement of him being a bit trigger-happy, but this was little consolation considering the implications of his actions.

Part of me was upset, and part of me didn’t care enough to do anything about the situation. What bothered me most is that being unstaffed meant that I’d need to start looking for another project much sooner than I had anticipated (or risk termination).

I wasn’t ready to be fired.

This is another reason my memories of Corporate America are not pleasant: there’s always an element of fear. Of not being in control of your destiny. Of external factors determining your course. Never again.

[Read parts 1 and 3 of this story]

[Read parts 2 and 3 of this story]

For three years, I worked as an IT Consultant with Accenture. By almost any metric worth evaluating, it was a great job with tons of perks. The trouble is, I was miserable.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom at first of course. It was my first full-time job following college, and one that I was extremely excited about. I remember packing my car following graduation in Tallahassee, Florida and heading up to Atlanta to begin my new life.

When I was assigned to my first project (a gig requiring me to travel twice per week, to one of two cities), I was living the life. A change of scenery, new challenges, travel perks, and tons of extremely bright coworkers.

After a while, however, disappointment started to set in. Being on an airplane twice a week sounds exciting, but the reality of that lifestyle is far from appealing. Including taxis, airplanes, and shuttles, I used to travel about 40 hours per month.

Although the grind of the traveling was rough, what really drained my life was the work. It was some of the most unfulfilling, pointless, and tedious work I could have ever imagined. And since I had absolutely no interest in much of it, work that should have taken an hour often took me a day.

There were times when I could fake the funk and get into things, but those moments were fleeting. I was in a world where the race for promotions and praise was taken very seriously, and I felt like the only person there who absolutely didn’t care.

So why didn’t I just quit?

Well, I had no idea what else I would do. I had an IT degree and no real work experience, so my job with Accenture was a critical step in building the experience I needed professionally. And since I did what all brilliant, single 22 year old professionals do when they have no immediate plans on getting married (buy a five bedroom house in an Atlanta suburb), I had a mortgage to contend with.

I started building websites on the side for others, but I wasn’t making enough to consider it a viable income stream, and free time was always an issue. I remember fixing sites and restarting servers from my hotel rooms at 2am (needing to be awake in a few hours for work) and just feeling utter despair.

There just wasn’t enough time, and I just wasn’t making enough. I didn’t know how to run a profitable web design operation, and I wasn’t sure if that’s what I really wanted to do in the first place.

But I kept at it. And slowly, I started getting better, taking on bigger projects that paid better, and developed some real expertise. Meanwhile, I was as miserable as ever on the job.

So what happened when you finally did quit?

I remember it pretty vividly: it was a Friday and I had a (side hustle) client meeting scheduled before a remote presentation that I needed to make (day job). I knew it wasn’t the best idea, but I would soon find out how bad it was.

The thing is, I hadn’t been applying myself on the job. I was supposed be learning this exciting application that had the potential to bring me recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. I wasn’t too terribly interested in any of those things though.

So during my presentation to my team, I floundered. It wasn’t just the noisy environment (I was trying to give it from a coffee shop since that was the closest place from my previous meeting location that had wifi). It wasn’t just the snarky coworkers (consulting is notorious for putting you in situations where hostile clients try to make life hell for you).

It was that I didn’t care.

And as a result of my apathy, my lack of preparation was on stage very publicly. It was bad but not a complete disaster, as the technology issues conspiring against us (plus the fact that I’m reasonably good on my feet) led to a “let’s try this again on Monday” decision, but the whole situation left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

That’s it?

That night, I experienced my first anxiety attack. I was shaken up by the day’s events, so I pulled it together and went to bed early. Saturday was uneventful, and Sunday rolled around quickly. As I began thinking about the next week (packing, the work, the unhappiness, etc.) I had another panic attack.

And this time, I didn’t ignore it. I called my manager, my mentor, and my parents with the news: I can’t do it anymore.

My manager convinced me to come in the that week (since flights were already booked, etc.), and I agreed. I was to take a week or two off following that, however. I boarded the flight the next morning feeling relieved that I had shared my unhappiness with others, and looking forward to Thursday (more on that later).

This would be my last week working for Accenture.

[Read parts 2 and 3 of this story]

I’m a headhunter.

This is how my friend Georges introduces himself at conferences and events. As a recovering IT Consultant, the very mention of a headhunter elicits memories of awkward phone calls, impersonal emails, and generally unsavory humans.

I got to know more about what Georges actually does over lunch last week and, it became apparent that he was selling himself short in the way he introduces himself. Georges helps technology professionals live better lives by connecting them with the opportunities they desire and deserve.

He told me the story of a developer whose salary almost doubled when taking a new offer, resulting in the young man being able to move out of his tiny apartment and plan a better honeymoon following his upcoming wedding.

Georges also clarified a lot of the issues I experienced with headhunters, and shed some light on the things to which I was oblivious when interacting with his kind (smile) before I quit my job last April. It was an illuminating discussion.

There’s a stigma attached to being a headhunter, just like there’s a stigma attached to being a marketer and salesman. The challenge is to communicate the art of what we do to others in a way that’s both honest and resonant.

So tell me.

What do you do?