Leaving the Perfect Life
ACHIEVEMENT WITHOUT FULFILLMENT
On paper, everything was awesome. I was earning 6 figures, working remotely in a WeWork, managing the top revenue-generating client at the consulting firm, and flying out to Fortune 500 companies giving sales presentations. This was exactly what I had set out to do when I was in college, land a big shot consulting job and be a jet-setter all over the US. However after only a few years, I was already asking myself…
“is this really it?”
I wasn’t getting the adventurous, curiosity-awakening fulfillment from my job I needed, so I constantly sought to scratch that itch by squeezing in international trips every chance I could get. How was it that I landed my dream job, yet the most exciting moments were traveling abroad or with friends & family, and never in my job?
THE RULES OF SOCIETY
“This is life man, can’t you see everyone else around you?”
“Keep your head down, work hard, and retire early”
“You should be grateful you have a such a great job”
“Hey, you can always plan a pretty awesome sabbatical in 5 years”
“Switching jobs wastes time, starting over means you lose all your progress”
These were the thoughts that flooded my mind when I was alone. And after moving to Miami to continue to advance my career in healthcare benefits consulting, I was alone a lot. Often I wished I didn’t have such restless thoughts; I wished I could just be happy with my current path. However, when I was on my international trips surrounded by diverse and inspiring people, places, and ideas, the ideas playing in my mind were quite different:
A DIFFERENT SET OF RULES
“There is an abundance of creative ways to make a living”
“Life doesn’t have to be squeezed in the gaps between work”
“When you love what you do, fulfillment doesn’t wait until retirement”
“You don’t have to wait if you have the courage to create”
“My restlessness isn’t a bad thing, it’s simply a signal for me to change”
After years of telling myself that I’d leave my unfulfilling career as soon as I figured out what to do next, I realized that convenient moment might never come. That narrative was simply fear, and the decision for leaving had to come before knowing what was next. Just like a hermit crab, I had outgrown my shell, and the only way to continue to grow was to leave it and face the uncertainty and vulnerability of life without it.
LETTER TO MYSELF: IT’S NOW OR NEVER
On my birthday, October 11th, 2019, I wrote myself a letter promising that I would leave my old shell (a.k.a. career) within a year no matter what. I signed my name at the bottom, and that’s exactly when I went from waiting for a moment to creating a moment. And the search for a new shell began. Just 6 months later, amidst the greatest pandemic the world had seen in 100 years, I left my 8-year career, fully paid health insurance, and comfortable lifestyle, behind.
I was shell-less, surrounded by uncertainty, and vulnerable. It was one of the scariest yet most exciting feelings I had had in years. The narrative playing during my quiet moments was almost exclusively “I don’t know what’s next, but this is absolutely exactly where I need to be right now”.
SHIFTING MY IDENTITY
I became obsessed with surrounding myself with inspiring people, soaking up new ideas, and talking about entrepreneurship, goals, and visions every chance I got. I went to seminars, took courses, read books, and hired a coach, all to help me expand both my skill set and my mindset. I knew this process wasn’t just about changing what I was doing, it was about changing part of my identity.
In 2020, while much of the world was waiting, I was creating. I created an entire online course about mastering change, an incredible new relationship, and a new title as Certified High Performance Coach.
LIVING BY MY OWN RULES
Since then, I have coached clients through their own shell changing experiences: they’ve left unfulfilling careers to go all-in on their own businesses, created “athlete” identities to transform their health, create more excitement in their relationships, and step into the most courageous versions of themselves. My own relationship has grown into one of the greatest joys of my life, and now we’re creating new ways to inspire the world together.
I pinch myself sometimes and ask, “is this seriously my life now? How did so much change and expand in so little time, especially after dreaming of change for years?”
The discomfort, fear, restlessness…. These were simply symptoms of me outgrowing my shell. As soon as I gave myself room to grow, it happened almost automatically. In life, we have two options: we are either growing or we are dying. In order to become who we wish to become in this life, we must be willing to let go of who we have been; we must become shell-shifters.
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