The Power of Quitting

I'm blind hey what's up everybody Welcome to the financial Independence podcast last time I read through one of my old posts and it seemed to go down really well so I figured I'll do one more and this one is on a similar topic as the last one so I think it'll fit quite nicely and the one I'm going to read today is the power of quitting and this was originally written way back in 2014 and it talk about how I decided to leave my job to move back to Scotland with my Scottish wife and the surprising thing that happened when I did hand in my resignation so hope you enjoy this one and I'll come back on at the end and give my feedback because a few of you reached out after last episode and said yeah really enjoyed listening to the old post but it'd be great to hear your take on it now considering you know it's now whatever 8 years later and I thought that was a great idea yes so I'll be back after this and hope you enjoy the power of quitting I was nervous when I walked into the meeting room with my boss breaking up is never easy to do even when it's you that's doing the breaking up on my journey to financial Independence I sometimes dreamt about the day I would be able to walk into my boss's office and quit on particularly bad days at work I would think about all the things I would say and that would help make the hard times easier to get through as I sat there though chatting nervously about work I mainly thought about the things that were good about my job it's amazing how you're able to see something in a different light when you don't feel trapped by it yet another unadvertised benefit of pursuing fire I guess finally after enough procrastination I just came out with it I'm moving to Scotland my boss was obviously shocked but the words that came out of his mouth actually surprised me would you consider staying on remotely although I was surprised that this particular boss asked me to stay on this is not the first time this Hasen happened I started my career in Scotland and when my girlfriend now wife and I decided to move to the states I handed in my resignation shortly after I received an email asking if I'd stay on remotely at roughly a 20% higher pay rate when I worked in Scotland I would have had to beg and plead to squeeze out an extra 1% in my annual review but here they were giving me a 20% bump to work in my boxers in a t-shirt I obviously accepted and worked happily like that for every year this is not even the second time this has happened I got my second job in my career through a technical recruiter in downtown Boston after working with a particular client for a while I asked the recruiting firm for a raise and they said they had to fight hard to get me a 4% increase when I left Boston to move to Vermont I was contacted by the client I worked for and was asked to work remotely full-time for over 50% more than I was making when I had to commute into the office every day it gets even better after working in a cabin in the woods of Vermont for a while I started to go a bit crazy so I decided to apply for a job at a university that was close by so that I could get a free ivy league degree when I told my Boston boss that I got another job she instantly bumped my pay another 20% to try to persuade me to stay even longer so why am I telling you this I realize remote working may not be an option for all of you but the important thing to take away from the story is that Having the courage to quit provides opportunities that you may not even know exist the best way to get that courage is to have enough saved up to not need the job even if for only a few months or years when I worked at my Scotland job I would have never imagine that one remote working was possible and two I would be able to get a 20% raise had I just asked my bosses for either of those things they would have laughed me out of the office when confronting my bosses with the option of either going through the hiring process again and rolling the dice with someone new or offering me a more attractive work AR agement to keep me on there was a no-brainer for them so how can you use this to get to fire quicker you should work hard at your job become a valuable employee and then after a few years apply for some other jobs there's no risk in applying for a new job every once in a while and only good things can come from it you'll either find another job that pays more or is more enjoyable or you could use that new job offer to negotiate better terms at your current job hey it's the mad fitist from 2024 again I hope you enjoyed that reading of the power of quitting as I reflect back on this over eight years later I think the power of quitting is even more important than I did back in 2014 as I've written about in years past leaving your job completely is a whole other can of worms and I think rather than racing to that Finish Line thinking about how you can improve your current situation and your current job is way more important I think because one you're not delaying your happiness and if you are very unhappy at work it makes a lot more

sense to make your journey to financial Independence a lot better by finding work that you do enjoy and the best way to do that is from a position of strength so if you have a current job you're going to be so much more appealing to recruiters or to other managers and you're likely going to get way more benefits if you do get an offer because I feel like recruiters and managers can smell desperation so if you're jobless even if you do have a big chunk of savings in the bank they don't know that so apply for more jobs from a position of strength and instead of just focusing on getting rid of work completely I think working your way into a job that you love is going to be way more fun and financially beneficial so yes realize the power of quitting and use it on your journey to fi and hopefully you work yourself into a job that you don't even want to quit once you reach F and then you get the best of both worlds a rewarding job a purpose colleagues that you enjoy hanging out with and the financial stability to know that you don't need the job and that's when you can actually really start to enjoy it all right thank you for listening and I'll catch you in the next one Finance