🔴 Quitting

This past month or so, I’ve been struggling.

I’ve struggled to be satisfied with my role at work.

The struggle lay somewhere between mapping out my future at VeeFriends and enjoying my summer.

On one hand, it makes sense to work as hard as I possibly can to create the best content for the VeeFriends Instagram.

On the other hand, that can get old, especially when it’s nice outside and I’d rather be relaxing somewhere in the sun.

Much of the VeeFriends team recently just worked at VeeCon in Los Angeles. VeeCon is where fans of VeeFriends and GaryVee come together to see speakers, influencers, friends, and music performances.

I saw many of my friends at VeeCon.

We’d start talking and they’d ask how it was working at VeeFriends.

After all, this is my dream job. Working for GaryVee was my life goal.

Working here is part of my identity as a human.

So, I would say what most would say to keep things light. “Yeah, it’s going really well. I’m happy to be here.” to which a few people replied, “Yeah, you love it?” and I’d agree.

It’s not that I’m not grateful to be here or that I don’t love parts of it.

I just lost focus on why I wanted to work here in the first place.

I wanted purpose.

And now that I’m here, I lost sight of my purpose.

I want to help people. I want to inspire. I want to learn from the best, hustle hard, and make a name for myself.

And I’m doing that, but the priorities I thought I wanted and how my day went were different.

I thought I wanted to build my personal brand. After all, it’s 2024. It can’t be that hard to make content and make a side income on social, right? So why haven’t I done it yet?

I thought that I didn’t have the drive to work on my profile at night because I was working on VeeFriends page all day.

I started to subconsciously think that my day job was getting in the way of my ultimate goal.

It started to hurt how I was showing up at work.

But I was wrong about the whole theory.

A change in my day-to-day role won’t suddenly give me motivation to work on something for myself. If that were true, I’d spring out of bed on the weekends and work 12 hours on my personal brand.

What I needed was to look at myself in the mirror and realize that I was in fight or flight mode.

I could either fight through thinking I didn’t have enough energy at the end of the day, or I could place blame on something outside my control and flee the scene.

I then realized that I was building this false scenario in my head. As with any problem, the solution is to face it head-on.

So, I talked to my manager and laid it all out.

I told them the truth. I wasn’t having fun. I was struggling mentally to enjoy the work. I felt lost. I felt like I didn’t know what to do.

The simple act of telling my manager was a positive experience. Her and I have a great working relationship, and I know she would be supportive of the truth.

Not all workplaces are like that. It’s a blessing if you are in a good one.

My manager told me they noticed I was a bit off, and could tell I wasn’t happy. They were thinking about changing the role a little bit so I was doing something rewarding. They were thinking of how to help me, which made me feel good.

After the conversation, I felt like a weight lifted off my shoulder.

It makes sense for me to take the challenging days head-on. We’re building something special at VeeFriends. It makes sense for me to stick with it, rather than jump ship to try becoming an influencer on my own.

I felt great for facing the problem head-on and sorting out the jumbled mess of thoughts I’d kept in my head.

Talking through how you feel is like taking a jumble of yarn and slowly, strategically unwinding it so you can make something out of it.

Hard conversations can save days of stress and bring immediate clarity.

In some cases, a hard conversation saves a lifetime of strain in a relationship.

So, if you know you’re in a role that challenges you in a good way, stick with it. Don’t give up. Stay. See what you can learn. Put yourself out there.

You have a whole lot more going for you than you realize.

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I almost chose to write about a different topic today. I almost didn’t write anything about me feeling lost.

However, an interaction at VeeCon motivated me to share my truth.

A community member, Katie, told me they spoke on stage in front of a few hundred people because they read 🔴 Do It Nervous. Do It Scared.

The newsletter came out the same day that the VeeCon speaker applications opened. Katie sent her application even though they were nervous. Even though they weren’t confident in their ability. They took the leap.

She referenced my newsletter specifically because she liked how I was honest about being nervous while doing interviews on the street.

It may look like others have it all together, but I promise, nobody really has life figured out.

So, I was inspired to share my honest feelings.

We’re all human. We have ups and downs.

Your dream job can provide great opportunities. But it’s also just a job.

It doesn’t make you invincible in having bad days, weeks, months.

It’s up to you to decide how you want to move forward after having a bad day.

Let’s focus on enjoying the next day.