CRAZY CAN BE COURAGEOUS

If you're not really happy with what you're doing and you're not acting on a momentary whim, you've got to be willing to risk letting go of the familiar in order to let in something else. Sometimes that means JUST JUMPING without knowing where you're going to land.

I've done this several times in my working life. It could look foolish from the outside. I didn't plan it but I knew what I had to do when the risk showed up.

I''m not talking about making a rash decision based on a momentary emotion; I'm talking about taking a clear-headed risk that could look nuts from the outside but you know it isn't.

When I first started working, I knew I'd gotten really good at graphic design because my corporate clients loved the original work I was doing and I loved doing it. I even got into illustration and my illustrations sold to clients like Westinghouse, Allmerica Financial, Travelers and others.

I summoned up my courage to ask for almost double my salary with a bottom line number. I wrote my desired number a piece of paper I still have (because it represents courage to me); It was so hard for me to ask for that number but I knew I was worth it. They were willing to go up to $5k below my bottom number and I said no because I'd drawn my line in the sand and knew I was being undervalued.

So I walked out. Right into a yellow cab (this is New York city).

No plan, no fallback.

It took me 6 months to find another good enough job that paid my bottom line number.

I had a great run at the next job until Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand and they didn't know what to do with me because I was not easy to define, so they gave me to a competitive, back-stabbing, bizarre female boss who had it in for me (told a bit of this story recently).

So I quit, after 5 great years.

No plan, no fallback.

Which led to me starting my own business, Embodyart, running now for 22 years with soul-aligned clients earning more than those jobs paid with the freedom to do whatever and go wherever I can imagine.

I'm not telling you to have no plan or fallback. I'm a creative who loves spreadsheets and I plan like crazy in many ways.

But sometimes you just gotta jump. Knowing when that is can take you exactly where you're supposed to go. And to places more beautiful than you could have ever imagined. Who knows when I would have started working for myself if I hadn't “jumped.”

Ever jump without a net? I wanna hear your story.