It’s been 2 years.

I am so, so grateful.

The company I worked for in my former life used to have a comprehensive program for new employees, a week-long class on company culture and history, policies and expectations. As much as I’m not a fan of corporate – to absolutely no fault of the company I was a part of – there was one piece of their culture that they taught us in that class that I still carry with me today. They called it: Kill the Snake.

It was a simple philosophy. It meant, if you see a snake, kill it. Take care of it.

Be the one that steps up and gets it done.

If you see an issue, even if it’s not part of your specific job description, take the extra step to take care of it. Because if you turn a blind eye to it, if you don’t take that extra step, then the snake just gets bigger and bigger.

And bigger snakes are much scarier and harder to deal with than little ones.

Plus, the perceived effort of stepping up and taking care of the snake is almost always much more than the actual act itself.

I was thinking about this concept this morning, related to a friend who is struggling with a few health issues. I suggested a few ways she could try and remedy the situation, and her reply was something along the lines of, “Yeah, I keep thinking I need to do that, I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

She was willing to let the problem get bigger and bigger, instead of taking a small – albeit a little unknown and untested for her personally – step to begin bettering her situation.

Kill the Snake. It can apply to business or personal, fixing a problem or making a positive change. Anything, really. Once the snake is realized, take the small step no one else will to take care of it. Take action. Be the one that steps up and takes responsibility. Prove to yourself how easily it can actually be done.

The issue, the situation, won’t get any better until you do.

I am frequently asked questions, online and off, about the details surrounding how I quit my job. Before January 2010, when I did it myself, I never realized how many of you amazing folks had similar goals and dreams. Or, I should say that I never realized how many people not only wanted to quit their jobs, but really were willing to learn about their options and actually take action towards making it happen some day. Go, you! Because you guys? You all rock.

Easily, the question I get most often is, “How did you do it?”

When asked, I usually end up answering with something intelligent like, “It’s comprised of, umm…a lot, umm, of stuff.”

To finally answer the question completely and to gather all the details in one place, I’m posting a Question & Answer session on the very subject. I hope that this helps clarify the real details surrounding what it took for me to comfortably quit my day job to do what I loved, and how you can learn to do the same.

This is how it happened for me.

I hope you find it useful when making it happen for yourself.

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What business did you build that allowed you to be ok financially with quitting your full-time job?

I built a business with a company called Vemma Nutrition, that pays independent distributors to market their product and build a network of people doing the same thing via a network marketing model. The company is based in Scottsdale, Arizona and I was introduced to it by a good friend of mine, who also happened to be my boss’s wife. I launched the business in July of 2007 alongside my full-time job.

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Can I still build a business and eventually quit my job, even if network marketing isn’t a fit for me?

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. Networking was what I chose, because it was the best fit for me and my lifestyle and my experience at the time. And it worked brilliantly. Now that I’ve been out of corporate for 18+ months I’m working on not only growing my Vemma business, but generating additional streams of income, too. Eventually, on top of generally advising people how to generate a stream of income in their own unique ways, I’ll be able to specifically teach people how to generate a streams of incomes via network marketing, freelance writing, or real estate investing.

Networking was best for me, and I used it (and continue to) as an amazing vehicle to launch me and Hubz into entirely different levels with our other businesses and our lives.

I wouldn’t be able to be at home, spending time every day writing and blogging if it weren’t for my Vemma business.
I wouldn’t be able to be at home, helping Hubz find and remodel and rent out investment properties with a newly obtained real estate license if it weren’t for my Vemma business.

It was a vehicle for me to get from point A to point B, and I will forever be in debt to the company and its leadership for what it has allowed me to do.

The rest of the answers are general, and I hope you find that they will apply to your situation no matter what unique business you choose to develop.

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Why didn’t you quit your job and then launch a business? Wouldn’t that have been easier?

That depends on your definition of easier. For me, I didn’t want to quit my job until I had already successfully built a business that, once I quit, could easily replace the salary I was earning in the corporate world. I was willing to sacrifice my time for a little while when trying to do both more so than I was willing to sacrifice my finances and my lifestyle. This is also the reason that I didn’t quit my full-time job the moment my business earnings equaled, and then surpassed my salary.

I’m young. I have many, many years ahead of me in financial planning and in life. I wasn’t just about to jump off the cliff at the first sign of success. I was going to jump, but I was going to be prepared. I was going to be ahead financially, not just even, I was going to be ready.

And plus, talk about, umm…SCARY. Please don’t quit your job and then launch a business. Please please please. Pretty please.

Well, do it if you must, I suppose. But please don’t mind me watching with my hands over my eyes while you do it. Yikes!

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How did you build it around your schedule?

There are many one-word answers that would brilliantly satisfy this question; Prioritization. Sacrifice. Determination. Commitment. Nooks-and-crannies-ness.

I built it around my life, around my full-time job, the best I could. During certain periods, I also built it around planning my wedding and remodeling our personal home. Doing so requires discipline and a determination the likes of which you have never experienced before. You have to be sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a) this is something you want to be doing, and b) that it will be worth it in the end.

I was sure of both.

I knew the vision of what I wanted (read: time freedom) and was willing to do whatever it took in the short term to make that vision come true for the long term.

I made phone calls while driving to and from work in the mornings and the evenings. I scheduled phone appointments during the lunch hour, often skipping lunch to do so. I communicated as many things as I could via text message, so I could respond to something on the way back to my desk from a meeting, or on the way down to the cafe to get coffee. I worked almost every evening for a couple hours, and at least one day every weekend. I all but gave up television, aside from the occasional weekend DVR session. I resigned myself to the fact that the laundry wouldn’t always be done on time and the dishes would sometimes pile up in the sink. I was ok with it. It was a short term thing.

Many days I made a list while laying down to go to sleep the night before of 4 to 5 things that, if I did nothing else, had to be completed the following day. If I completed them, even if life got in the way of everything else, I considered the day a success.

I lived by the 80/20 rule. Nothing was going to be perfect for a little bit, and my life became so much easier and less stressful when I decided that I would be ok with that.

I made sure I had a spouse who was on board before I started. I wasn’t the only one sacrificing.

Long story short: I decided it was going to happen, and I didn’t let any excuse get in my way. Short term sacrifice for long term gain.

No one has extra time just sitting around, hoping to be filled. You have to make it, and that only happens with everything I mentioned above: prioritization, determination, sacrifice, and commitment. And repurposing the formerly wasted nooks and crannies of your day!

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What did you struggle with?

I struggled with the continual self-motivation. Over long periods of time, it’s exhausting. I went through a few (very short) burn-outs.

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How did you get past those?

Making sure that the burn-out moments only lasted a day. Two at the most.

I also scheduled “times off” where I gave myself permission to not feel guilty about laxing and not working as hard as I usually did. Vacations, occasional weekends with family, etc. They were infrequent, but when they arrived I let myself completely off the hook for a couple days. There was no way to allow the time off to refresh me and recharge my batteries unless I unplugged 1000%.

It worked. It still works. Every time.

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Did you have to save to start the business? How did you do that?

Due to the nature of networking, I had no start-up costs. My costs to run the business were limited to about $150 a month in product that I personally consumed and the value of my time.

That’s partly why I choose the business I did, no start-up investment. If I launched another type of business that required up front moola, I would have incorporated that into my plans, and the process would have been the same, just extended a bit to accommodate for that saving time.

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Did you work on your business at all while you were at work?

Yes. I’m not going to lie, sometimes I worked on my business while I was at my full-time job. Was that a big reason for my success? No. But it helped, no doubt about it.

I think everyone, to a certain degree, does a little bit of personal work while at their work work. Whether it’s calling your child’s school or making a doctor’s appointment or sending two emails to prospects, it happens.

Most days I would limit my outside work to a few minutes here and there throughout my day. Other days it would be…worse.

I struggled early on with personal guilt over this subject. For a while, I thought I would quit early and get a part-time hourly job somewhere so that I could have more time to build my business and not feel guilty about it. However, after months and months of contemplation, I realized a couple things:

1) Corporate is corporate. Even if you have close, professional relationships with several of the people you work for, it’s still corporate. In the end, the company doesn’t care about you, they care about their business. If they didn’t care about me, I realized, I wasn’t going to care too much about them.

2) If I was doing my job and completing my projects as assigned, I wasn’t going to feel guilty. I shouldn’t feel guilty. My Type A personality raged for a long time that I wasn’t doing my best and wasn’t going above and beyond, but I made the decision to ignore that and drowned that Type A chica in my hard work.

I walked a fine line between doing my job yet not caring one bit about my job. I completed it, but didn’t care about it. I took risks. I realize that not everyone might not be able to be as risky. I had a spouse with a salary just as great as mine, we didn’t have children to support, and we were financially stable. However, even if I wasn’t able to be as risky, I still could have done what I did. I would have adjusted and worked harder and longer after hours than I personally had to.

It still would have worked, just required a bit of extra time.

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What did you do at that corporate job again?

I was a software designer for a large healthcare software company based locally in Kansas City. I was a computer geek.

Wait. I still am.

Moving on.

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How did you keep your employer from finding out about your outside venture?

I didn’t. Sort of.

I didn’t talk about it directly online, yet I didn’t hide it either. I didn’t openly talk about it at work, either, but if someone happened to ask something specific about it, I wouldn’t lie. I didn’t try to hide it. I did, however, downplay the significance of my business on my life, my finances, and my future plans.

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How did they react when you finally resigned?

They were surprised. Not that I resigned, but by the timing of it. As I sat in a conference room, too early on a Friday morning to be considered normal, and slid my resignation letter across the table to my manager, he said, “Yeah, I knew you had plans to do this someday, but, man, I never realized it would happen so soon.”

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How did you finally decide to pull the plug?

When it became clear that, financially, it was becoming more and more real that I was earning beyond just a part-time income with my business, we set a bunch of goals. In my journal, I think it was titled something like Annie’s Retirement List. It was the list of items that had to be achieved, completed, or set into place before we could even think about pulling the plug.

The list included things like, the business must be profiting 25% more than your current corporate salary, add however much to our savings account, purchase a new car, purchase a new computer and get it all set up, etc. We tried to come up with any and all big financial hurdles and add them to the list to be completely taken care of before we even set a date for resignation. I drove a beat-up car and we knew that purchasing a new one was in the near future, so we made sure to accomplish that first and get past it financially. The computer I used was my corporate computer, so buying a new laptop, copying all my personal files over, and getting my own home office set-up was a must.

We didn’t want to be stuck with any surprises after I resigned.

We don’t have any revolving debt (read: credit card balances), but if we did, paying ALL of those off would have been on the list. I was already covered under Hubz’s insurance, but if I wasn’t and my employer was providing it for me, taking care of that would have also been added to the list.

In mid December 2009, we were sitting in the living room and I flipped open my notebook to review the list. We realized with a start that all of them had been met, looked at each other from across the room with wide eyes, and then Hubz said, “Well, let’s get past the holidays a couple weeks, then…go for it. Set your date.”

And then I died of happiness. Then I came back to life, threw my arms into the air, exhaled the largest breath I’ve ever taken in my life, and opened up my calendar.

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Did you involve any of your co-workers in your business?

Nope. It wasn’t worth it. I was already being risky enough, I didn’t need to add accusations of using co-workers for outside ventures to my list of Things To Feel Guilty About.

Not involving them was just…easier. However, it did make for some interesting conversations once I announced my resignation. Because I didn’t involve them, most had no clue how or what or why I was doing what I was doing. It was a whole other part of me I had to introduce to them. It was interesting. And fun. And interesting.

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How did you mentally handle separating your two drastically different “lives” – one by day, one by night?

Very carefully. And with a lot of determination and discipline and lack of emotion.

As I’ve mentioned, I had to care just enough to get my work done, but not care so much that I was bothered by the fact that I was working harder for myself than for my employer. Once I taught myself how to let go the emotion surrounding my full-time job, leaving it behind the moment I stepped out of my cubicle became easy. My mind immediately switched from employer mode to Annie mode, and I was off to the races.

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How long did all of this take you?

I decided in the spring of 2005 that I wanted to find something to build that could help me get out of corporate. I was 24 at the time. I worked with two network marketing companies in two years and, despite my hard work, failed miserably. I launched my Vemma business in July 2007, replaced my full-time salary with the profit Vemma was earning me by the end of 2008, and had met all of my goals and resigned by January 2010 at the age of 29.

So, it took me almost 5 years from the first realization that this was what I wanted, and then two and a half years with Vemma, the vehicle that got me there.

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What’s your main piece of advice for someone who wants to do what you did?

You have to be determined and committed. You have to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it will happen. That it’s simply a matter of time. I knew the first day I started work at 22 years old that I wouldn’t be there forever, and it was barely two years later that I realized I was ready to start working towards that goal. I had no idea how it would happen, it just knew that it would. Someday somehow.

That’s the type of mentality you have to have.

You will have setbacks, you will fail, you will do things wrong. The trick to making it happen is that you keep moving forward anyway, regardless of all of that stuff. Let the failures and the mistakes stop you and it will never happen.

I also think that a little bit of faith helps. Faith in whatever you have faith in. A belief that when it’s supposed to happen, it will, and if it’s not time yet, then it’s not time yet.

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And that’s all she wrote, folks! What other questions do you have about my story of how I quit my job? What questions may I help with regarding you quitting your job? If that’s your cup of tea, of course.

If you have a question you’d like me to answer, share it in the comments below and I’ll update the post with your question.

Happy job-quitting. Wohooo!

Life is so grand, isn’t it?
AS

Ah ah ahem. AHEM.

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Dear Former Employer,

You stuck me in this thing for six and a half years:

For that, I will never be the same.

I learned in that cloth-lined fortress.
I learned so much.

I learned that, in business, you can’t always be all of yourself. I got into trouble for using sarcasm with another employee. I taped a piece of paper with the words BROWN NOSE written on it to my laptop’s keyboard for a year.

You have to hold back a bit.
Professional, unfortunately, means limiting the personal.

I learned how to communicate, how to be clear and concise and convincing.
I learned how to be truthful, and how to stop apologizing for things that did not require apologies. A typical girl, I was determined not to be.

I learned how to accept instructions with a nod. No less, no more. Don’t give them anything.

I learned team dynamics, how to lead without being the titled leader, and when to sit and leave the leading to others.

I learned what matters.
And what doesn’t.

I learned how much above and beyond Above And Beyond meant. I won the awards, then felt simultaneously proud of myself and embarrassed that I hadn’t allowed someone else earn it instead. Someone who cared.

I learned what it feels like to suddenly realize that this is not what you want for the rest of your life. To be scared that you don’t care anymore. Because you want to care. Don’t you?

I learned how a simple, striking realization can change everything.
Everything, everything, everything.

I learned what dread felt like, laying in bed on Sunday nights.

I learned what guilt felt like, jumping out of my chair at 5:01pm, knowing that I didn’t give it my all that day.

I learned who I was, and who I wasn’t.

Six and a half years, I learned. Last week, I remembered.

I remembered the business suit-clad 22 year-old who, eight years ago last week, arrived for her first day an hour and fifteen minutes early. She was so excited. I remembered the feeling of closing one door and opening another from eighteen months ago, when that corporate chapter came to an end.

I learned.
I remembered.

I learn.
I remember.

Around and round.

So, my Former Employer, this is my letter to you. You know who you are. I’m not going to say thanks, but simply, I remember.

Six and a half years.
So much.
So many.

I remember.

To you,
Annie

A huge thank-you to Tim Jahn over at BeyondthePedway.com for this interview. I met Tim at Big Omaha in May – amongst many, many others – so it was wonderful to chat with him 1-on-1 for a bit.

Check out the interview, here.

And while you’re there, be sure to check out the rest of Tim’s blog. Amazing interviews with impressive folks such as Dennis Crowley, the founder of Foursquare, Jason Sadler of iwearyourshirt.com, David Hauser, the co-founder of Grasshopper, and much, much more.

It occurred to me a couple days ago that I hadn’t reviewed my life list in several months. I *love* these realizations. It’s a known fact that simply writing down your goals and dreams is a massive step towards actually making them come true. Don’t ask me how, but writing them down clicks something in your brain. You can consciously “forget” about the item, yet your brain never does. Long story short, reviewing the list after a period of time often leads to wonderful surprises of accomplishment that, at the time, you didn’t even realize were happening.

Aren’t our minds weird?

Anyway, I love when I “remember” that I haven’t reviewed my list in a while, because every time that happens it’s usually a notification from that crazy, hidden part of my brain that, “Hey! You’ve accomplished something! GO SEE WHAT IT WAS.”

Upon reviewing my list, I realized that I just accomplished an enormous item:

My last day at The Corp was January 22, 2010. I’m 28, turning 29 this coming April. Which means I accomplished that item from the list exactly as I had said I wanted to – before I turned 29.

Awesome.

What’s interesting about this item, specifically, is that I absolutely couldn’t have “fired” all bosses besides myself it those bosses hadn’t been so amazing. Seriously. My former employer offered me so many opportunities to grow as a person, as an employee, and indirectly, as an entrepreneur. They were flexible, trusting, and encouraging. Both the company as a whole and the individuals I was able to call team members and managers.

They know who they are, and I sincerely hope someday that they land on this post. When they do, I’d love to say thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Story time…

This is my badge from, let’s call it, The Corp. The photo it displays was taken July 21st, 2003, during the first hour of my first day in the corporate world. I don’t really even recognize this person anymore. The face from six and a half years ago is one of a naive, eager college graduate, excitedly wearing her only business suit. The suit that she had on that day at 5am because she was so excited that sleeping in wasn’t an option.

The girl in the photo didn’t know she would, in fact, start businesses she was only then dreaming about. She didn’t know that in a month from then a certain boy would see her from across the room, nine months later ask her to dinner, and four years later ask her what she was doing for the rest of his life. She didn’t know the best friends, the business friends, the mentors, and the inspirations she would someday meet, nor how to even tell the difference.

That girl hated Kansas City.
That girl thought her paychecks were HUGE.
That girl thought 22 sounded old.

She didn’t know when, if ever, the entrepreneurial bug would really take hold. She didn’t know then that she’d soon be getting into trouble for awesome things like arriving too late in the morning, taking too long of a lunch break, working from home without telling anyone, and taking too much vacation. Umm, I’m pretty sure that girl should have taken the hint sooner.

The day I took this picture I also signed an employment agreement, the agreement I had long since forgotten was stored away in the depths of HR somewhere until it was surprisingly sent back to me last week, six and a half years later, with the request that I print and sign the elusive last page. It was a page I initialed that first day with the letters ALP and dated 07-21-03 in an excited scrawl, while probably not giving a second thought to when I would ever – or IF I would ever – see it again. The Termination Statement.

Yikes.

Six and a half years I’ve carried this security badge around in my purse. I never, ever removed it. It has traveled all over the country, all over the world, with me. It’s been stepped on, thrown across the room, ripped, muddied, cleaned off, dropped down stairwells, used as a weapon, used to show off, and screamed at for not “catching” the security reader as I ran by it too fast in attempts to catch the meeting for which I was surely late. It said one name for many years, then switched to another. It’s been used across town for corporate discounts, made fun of for the crazy orange exposure of the photo, giggled at for the hairstyle of its featured face, and accepted as a part of life.

It was The Badge. It didn’t need any other description. And it was always there, tinkering on the brink of the always-needed-yet-never-noticed line.

And today I will turn it in, along with all of my other…stuff, most of which I have long since emotionally accepted as mine yet have been sharply reminded these past weeks that they never have been, and never will be. I will hand all of it over. I will hand it over and then walk out the door – THE door – and politely, excitedly, and emotionally close it behind me.

I’ve done it. WE have done it.

And with that, I’m off to find new, exciting doors to open…who’s with me?

Ha. If you have a few moments to waste, this is a humorous, sarcastic look at many of the reasons why corporate America is sometimes, well…kinda funny.

7 Habits of Hightly Effective Slackers

And by funny, I really mean ridiculous.