Do you ever have those days when you wake up and think to yourself, “What am I doing with my life? What type of legacy am I leaving behind?”

Well, if you do, you’re not alone. And if you don’t, then please tell me what your secret is.

I’ve woken up with this thought more times than I care to admit. At first, it started out as a slight tingle in the back of my head. You know, the kind that makes you perk your eyebrows for a second, but then you just go about your day…definitely not enough to warrant any real attention. Then over the course of a year or two, it got stronger and stronger, until one day I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

My mind was filled with continuous questioning about what I was doing, where I was going, how I was spending my time, whether I was satisfied with my life. It just wouldn’t stop. It was like the nagging little voice that I couldn’t shut up, no matter how much I tried. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but then after a particularly horrible meeting with my boss, it hit me. It was coming from work.

Don’t get me wrong, on paper I had a great job with a great company. The people in my immediate office and in the other departments in the building were absolutely amazing and made work so much fun. But I couldn’t help to feel like what I did on a daily basis just really wasn’t good enough. I created campaigns, managed events, executed my well thought out marketing strategy, but it seemed to just not be what my boss wanted. I was faced daily with backhanded comments and an extremely unprofessional approach to the way that the team was managed.

It was exhausting. And it slowly wore me down, day by day, until I just didn’t want to be a part of it any more.

When you work as hard as I did and aren’t appreciated for it, it feels like a huge slap in the face.

Yep, after a while, the idea of working my butt off to line the pockets of shareholders really started to frustrate me, especially when I was often treated as though I was expendable and told my work was never good enough.

When you work as hard as I did and aren’t appreciated for it, it feels like a huge slap in the face. You start to devalue yourself. You start to think that maybe you aren’t as advanced or as experienced as you had thought. You start to second guess who you are and what you can do. Your self-worth starts to trickle down the drain.

This was happening to me, and I hated it.

I knew I was much more talented than the way my boss was making me feel. It was hard to deal with, but I tried. Holy crap, did I try. I mentioned my management issues to the ‘higher ups’ in the company and to human resources, in hopes that things may change, but I was met with a, “well that’s just how it is because your boss is a shareholder” mentality.

To say I was unhappy with my place in my career was an understatement.

Then one day, I walked into work, went straight into my friend’s office, and said, “I’m going to quit today.” She looked at me and asked the obvious questions, as any good friend should. Do you have another job? How will you survive? Where will you go? What are you going to do?

The truth was, I had no idea; I was terrified. I just had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to walk away from the toxic environment that had been created in my department. There had to be better things out there for me. My job was bringing no real value to the world. Surely, I could find a better use of my skills and time working for someone that actually needed me and actually valued me. I somehow knew, deep down in the pit of my soul, that this was the right choice for me.

After some thinking, I came up with a solid plan. You know, because I always have a plan for everything I do. I would work for myself. I would offer my marketing consulting services to small and medium sized businesses that couldn’t afford someone of my caliber on a regular basis. This way they will be able to bask in the lovely aura of a seasoned veteran of the marketing world without the high price tag of onboarding a new employee.

Then, at the same time, I would travel the world and really experience my life, rather than sit around and wait for things to happen. Seemed like a solid choice to me.

So then, all I had to do was quit.

I’ll never forget the phone call I made to my boss telling her that I had decided to work for myself and do consulting work while traveling. I was so nervous. As I look back at it now, I have no idea why I was so nervous. I was pulling the reigns of my life into my own hands. This was my chance to take back control over my career and the way I was treated in a professional environment. I was choosing me over a corporation.

So, I made the call.

She took the entire thing in a very positive way, although, I could sense her frustration. She had recently had other team members leave or want to transfer to other positions in the company, and I don’t think she could figure out why people were moving on from her department. I guess it’s always easier to make excuses for others, rather than reflect inwardly on yourself and your management styles.

I gave an extremely generous notice of 2 months. If anything, I’m extremely professional and would never want to leave my employer high and dry. I tend to over plan things in general, and I could never bring myself to leave an employer without a leg to stand on, regardless of how they may have treated me.

We discussed the possibility of me doing consulting work for her after I left, which I agreed to as long as the terms were mutually beneficial to both of us. And then she hurriedly hung up the phone to catch her next meet, as she always does. And I took a deep breath and relished in the fact that I just made one of the boldest moves of my career. 

It seems so silly to me now that I was so afraid of that phone call. It was just a quick 4-minute conversation. Something like that is so unbelievably simple at its core.

I had developed a dream of my perfect life. And I was one step closer to it all.

And afterwards, I felt better than I had ever felt.

I had a new plan of action for my career and my life. Finally, there was something to direct my efforts towards that would benefit me. I had developed a dream of my perfect life. And I was one step closer to it all.

You know, although I may be from Las Vegas, I’ve never been the gambling type. But, for the first time in my life I placed my bet and rolled the dice, and hot damn, it felt great.