My Unexpected Lessons Since Quitting My 9-5 Job 🤯

I scheduled a meeting with my boss one cold mid-March morning in New York City. Since saving up almost $40,000, I had started to taste freedom in my morning coffee. My courage came out of nowhere. I was about to do something crazy. I was on the edge, flirting with the real world. That morning, I did the dead. I quit my full-time job.

Three years have passed since that fateful morning, and this week, I hosted a party to celebrate that. As I sipped white wine with my friends, I realized that despite what the crunch of capitalism would want you to believe, I’m still here. I’ve survived for three years without a full-time job; I also moved to Mexico City and published a teen romance novel in the process. And in some ways, I’m thriving.

This article is for anyone in the corporate world who is curious about what I’ve learned in the chaos of building my new career as a writer, freelancing, and fun, which I’m calling my “post-employment” era. Here, I’ve distilled for you the five most important professional lessons that I’ve never shared anywhere else, as well as the most impactful things in other categories of my life.

Top Five Lessons for Post-Employment Professional Thriving 🚀

1. 1% of effort leads to 100% of the outcome. In my experience, the Pareto 80-20 Rule applies even more extremely in our real-world endeavors. Focusing your efforts on the exact right thing is more valuable than anything else. For example, I recently took 5 minutes to pitch a quote to an editor. That pitch landed me in Vogue, earning my first mention in a major publication. Whether you’re trying out a new hobby or building a business, spend your energy on the easier, highest-impact tasks first to catalyze your progress. When you find something that works, double down on it. Ignore everything else.

2. Things compound slowly. Arguably, it took me 30 years of being alive to land that quote in Vogue. The truth is, you’re going to work for a long time with no meaningful progress until your efforts start to compound. Eventually, you’ll achieve a critical mass and accomplish with one email what you struggled to gain in five years with 100 rejections. You have to stay strong and stay the course. Mark every little bit of your progress along the way. Celebrate your wins. That’s why I threw myself that Post-Employment Party, and why I celebrate my Author Birthday every year. Encourage yourself to keep going. You’ll need it.

3. It’s all about who you know. Nepotism, baby. You’re not above this! You’ll only land the consulting contracts you want if you know the right people. I have never gotten a job without a warm introduction to one of the higher-ups at the company. Last year, rather than spreading myself thin and applying for a bunch of random contracts across the internet, I nurtured one warm intro I got to the CEO of Clue, the leading period-tracking app and my dream client. I got s**t done and won contracts with them for a whole year. Focus on writing that one email to that one right person, that warm lead you have.

4. Ideas that you think are absurd will lead to your success. When you’re building something new, you have no idea what is going to work, and you will fail constantly. Remember that humans are really bad at evaluating which of our creative ideas will succeed. For example, last year, I wrote a niche article called “.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}