
Why Quitting Your Job to Chase Your Dream Is a Terrible Idea - joeyespo
https://medium.com/life-learning/why-quitting-your-job-to-chase-your-dream-is-a-terrible-idea-a3269e281eda#.f4ixagsxs
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notacoward
The author might benefit from knowing that the "10,000 Hour Rule" has
basically been debunked[1]. Even K. Anders Ericsson, on whose work the concept
is based and whom the author cites, has said it's wildly misunderstood and
misapplied.

    
    
      > It has to be deliberate, dedicated time spent focusing on improvement.
    

Staying in your current job generally won't create that kind of feedback loop.
Stretching your boundaries in a new position very well might. I would
certainly never say that everyone should run out and join startups, but "take
your time building the skills" sounds like an excuse for being too
conservative.

[1] [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/10000-hour-rule-
not...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/10000-hour-rule-not-
real-180952410/?no-ist)

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bpchaps
Agreed. I never really spent any time specifically learning, but just by
getting deep into the thing I'm working on with a secondary focus on learning
is all it took. Deliberate, dedicated learning like what's being described
here just sounds like a recipe to learn at a shallow level, rather than using
self motivation and interest as a tool to learn.

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m0llusk
All of my jobs have been meat grinders that left no room for outside work and
had contracts which explicitly forbade any such. Before I started to plan
seriously for independent work my corporate benefactors quit me. Such
experiences are actually quite common and make this article seem trite.

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aregsarkissian
Bill Gates quit Harvard to chase his dream of building microcomputer software.
Steve jobs quit reed collage then Atari and Steve Wozniak quit HP to chase
their dream of the integrated personal computer. The google guys were phd
candidstes that left to commercialize their search engine technology. What is
this guy talking about?

