

If You’re Nervous About Quitting Your Boring Job, Don’t Do It - pgbovine
http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/12/26/if-youre-nervous-about-quitting-your-boring-job-dont-do-it/

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dasil003
_My point is that if I wanted to start my own company (which I don’t), I
wouldn’t feel nervous. The reason is clear: By earning a PhD in computer
science at MIT I developed a skill that’s rare and valuable to this particular
economic segment._

So this guy thinks that getting emails from recruiters means that he has what
it takes to be an entrepreneur? He thinks that a degree you get from a
University teaches you something about running a business. Oh, and by the way,
he would be fabulously successful at it _if he wanted to_. Yeah, I could dunk
over Shaq too, it's just that I don't have any _interest_ in playing
basketball.

Being an entrepreneur has so little to do with skills (you can always learn
those). It's about decision-making, ability to learn and pivot, and guts.
Frankly, I find this guys ivory-tower preaching to be grating. He doesn't know
jack about entrepreneurship and yet he's willing to take a dump all over
someone who happened to be starting their first business in a market segment
that was hit terribly hard by the recession.

~~~
briancooley
Indeed, it seems to me that he would fail miserably at starting a company
because he equates the product/service his company would make/offer with his
education.

It's as if Google would have been successful just by branding their search as
"Google - the search engine developed by Stanford PhD's"

What's rare and valuable are people that accomplish a lot with a little. I
have no idea if the culture at MIT preferentially fosters that kind of dogged
resourcefulness, but thinking you're done before you even get started because
of a handful of letters on a piece of paper is a start in the wrong direction.

~~~
neilc
_he would fail miserably at starting a company because he equates the
product/service his company would make/offer with his education_

I think you misunderstood the post. The author said nothing about how his PhD
would directly relate to starting a new company (the author's research is
theoretical, anyway). Rather, the point is that by acquiring a valuable skill
(a PhD from MIT), his risk profile is lower: he could go and start a new
venture, or equivalently wager all his assets at the roulette table; either
way, his skills mean he would be able to find a good job if the gamble doesn't
turn out well.

If you like, substitute "MIT PhD" for "become one of the top 5 Linux kernel
developers" for an equivalently rare, valuable skill that would help to ensure
future employment.

~~~
briancooley
Upon rereading, I agree with your assessment, but the crux of the issue is
that his example of Lisa isn't so "pristine."

He argues that her small business failed because her skills weren't rare and
valuable. Then he says his skills _are_ rare and valuable.

A consistent argument springing from those two statements would be either a)
my business won't fail because my skills are rare and valuable, or b) Lisa
can't find another job in marketing (the job she held for a decade before
quitting) because _those_ skills aren't rare and valuable.

He didn't make either of those arguments, instead focusing on her yoga
instructor skills. It makes for a muddled post.

------
nostrademons
There's a corollary in here: if you're early in your career, _optimize for
skill-building as much as possible_. It doesn't matter whether you're building
skills at someone else's company or at your own (though the former pays
better), but it does matter that you're building them.

I quit my day job a couple years ago to found a startup with a friend. The
startup flamed out miserably, and in hindsight I was woefully unprepared. But
the skills I learned at my startup set me up for my _next_ job, where there
are many more opportunities to learn further skills. Hopefully by my next
attempt, I'll have enough "rare and desirable" skills to make it succeed.

Come to think of it, this may make a good litmus test for when to leave your
job. Quit when the opportunities available for skill building are less than
what you'd learn from a failed startup.

------
zaidf
This is the third article in last 24 hours in the top list where the author
uses straw man to shove his own view forward by attacking an incorrectly
interpreted opposing view. I hope it doesn't become a trend.

Using your nervousness level to gauge if you should go forward is as flawed as
you can get. Some of the best achievers in their field--Tyson, Kobe etc.--
admit to getting nervous.

~~~
city41
It also struck me as rather smug and arrogant: "You can't quit your job, but I
have a PhD from MIT, so I can." Geez buddy.

~~~
zaidf
Absolutely. The part where he says he doesn't feel nervous about doing a
startup because he has a PhD from MIT. I almost threw up.

I don't know any start-up founder that cites his degree as a key motivation
for doing a start-up.

All this is really sad because I think someone can write a solid post about
the possible downsides of quitting your boring job and what precautions to
take. This guy is trying to do that - but in all the wrong ways.

~~~
neilc
_I don't know any start-up founder that cites his degree as a key motivation
for doing a start-up._

Nowhere does the post suggest that a PhD is _motivation_ for doing a startup.
The point is that if you have a valuable skill (whether a PhD or experience as
a successful VP), if you take a risk, you'll still have a comfortable position
to fall back on.

~~~
zaidf
PhD -> not nervous -> do startup

I'd say that qualifies as motivation.

------
csallen
MIT has a mailing list devoted to CS-related job opportunities. In the last
few years I've gotten over 6500 joblist emails. I recently graduated and I'm
working hard on my first startup, but not a day goes by without a few emails
that catch my eye. The author writes:

 _much better jobs are out there, but they’re only available to people with
much better skills than most of their peers_

There's a lot of truth to this statement. It almost seems unfair that my inbox
is filled with jobs, while people like my mother and some of my friends spend
hours sending out their resumes.

~~~
Tichy
Were your mother and friends unable to acquire the required skills, or were
they simply not interested in doing so? Perhaps there are thousands of job
requests, but few that would suit your friend's taste?

I am pretty sure even your mom could become a Java developer...

~~~
pgbovine
i don't know about the exact nature of these jobs emails, but oftentimes the
positions are only advertised to current students and recent alums of the
universities. even if his mom could learn java quickly, she might not be
eligible for those jobs, since they want to interview fresh-faced 20-year-old
college seniors from College X

~~~
Tichy
Yeah, there are always excuses.

------
keeptrying
The only useful thing in the article is the message that "if you can get a job
at an incubator before starting a company then do so". Ie, if you can simulate
the experience of starting a company then do so.

Everything else is nonsense.

* Whenever your going to do something outside of your previous experience, your going to be nervous.

* Being nervous doesnt mean you give up. What if Laird had complained that he was too nervous to surf Teahupoo?

* Sometimes your not going to be able to simulate what you want to do. So make sure you have an safety net if things dont go according to plan.

IMHO In the end the regret of never having tried is far worse than any other
consequence.

~~~
wallflower
Teahupoo reference:

Beautiful, deadly, gorgeous

"Brad Laird surfing Teahupoo"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfPYVYc0U3M>

<http://www.surfline.com/surfing-a-to-z/teahupoo-history_925/>

------
araneae
The implication is that "instinct" knows better than you do.

But my instinct sucks. I have no usable skills, and yet I'm not nervous at
all- I'm fairly fearless in general. It's reason that's telling me that this
is probably a bad idea, not instinct.

------
mburney
In terms of startups, the question to consider is if you need a valuable and
rare skill to make a valuable product.

I would guess that you need several valuable skills to build and market a
great product, but those skills do not necessarily correspond to having
several fantastic job offers as this writer suggests.

------
jsz0
Terrible advice. Everything in life is a risk. Chances are you will end up
with many boring & comfortable jobs in your life. Sometimes you'll leave by
choice, sometimes you won't have any choice at all. I figure everyone owes it
to themselves to at least try their dream in life. The key is to be well
prepared, pragmatic, time it right and do it before others are relying on you
for their well being. Usually the worst outcome is you have to go crawling
back to that boring & comfortable job.

------
rubyrescue
perhaps a better name for the article would be Don't Quit Your Boring Job
Before You Have A Decent Replacement Revenue Strategy.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Not enough. The woman in the example given had a DRRS, but it disappeared
because the skill being used was not rare, nor valuable in and of itself.

The claim in the article is that having a skill that is rare and valuable make
you non-nervous, thus being nervous about taking the leap means you don't have
a skill that's rare and valuable.

Clearly false - anyone can be nervous regardless of their skills. However,
it's worth a moment's thought.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_The woman in the example given had a DRRS..._

It's cruel to pick on a poor unemployed entrepreneur. On the other hand, it's
no crueler than life itself has been, and it might save some others, so let me
apologize in advance and then say that:

 _Karma Kids Yoga — a yoga practice focused on young children and pregnant
women._

... may be a Replacement Revenue Strategy, but I am not convinced it is
Decent. It sounds like a terrible business idea. By definition your target
market is _constantly turning over_ \-- mothers these days have one or two
kids, maybe three at the outside, and those kids don't stay young for long.
You build a clientele, and then that clientele graduates and you need a whole
new clientele. And the plan doesn't scale -- you're limited to recruiting from
a very specific demographic in one very specific location.

And it's not as if you're selling baby food, or strollers, or something that
every mother actually _needs_ \-- you probably can't even net 100% of the
mothers who live in your neighborhood and practice yoga [1], since anyone can
practice yoga on their own, and the economy is in the dumps.

~~~
bd
_"It sounds like a terrible business idea. By definition your target market is
constantly turning over -- mothers these days have one or two kids, maybe
three at the outside, and those kids don't stay young for long. You build a
clientele, and then that clientele graduates and you need a whole new
clientele."_

I wonder if the outcome would be different if she targeted elderly.

It seems like a better market both thanks to demographics and IMHO also as
value provided to the customers (and society in general) would be higher.

------
jagjit
Entrepreneurship is not limited to doing a tech startup. Also, going on your
own is not worthwhile only for people with other comfortable options.

It is a pity that a PhD with such high credentials has such a narrow world
view.

Edit: This article seems to be saying startups make sense when one has these
desirable skills. In other words only start on your own if you are in a field
where you need a difficult or highly prized degree. Well we all know where the
highly desired financial engineering skills have led the economy.

The author is just risk averse. Which is OK. So a degree and other options -
which are a hedge against startup failure - seem to him to be pre-requisites
for going on your own.

------
Zilioum
He's in the fortunate position of being able to increase his job-market value,
while actually working. If you really want to change your job, you might have
to quit and start again from scratch - whether you are nervous or not.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Best advice I've heard is to make small changes that get you closer to your
desired job, while utilizing your existing skillset, like asking for
additional duties at your current employer. This way, you avoid the start-
from-scratch phase you describe.

~~~
zacharypinter
That's great advice. I took a position as a dev lead at my job a while back
because I wanted more experience dealing with clients, budgets, estimating,
and delegating tasks. It's been far more stressful than my previous position,
and my pay has yet to increase accordingly (though it should within the next
month), but I consider it a win for all the experience it has provided me. I
look forward to applying these skills to my own projects.

------
DougBTX
Appendng "yet" to the title would, imo, align it more closley to the article.

------
msort
Many people have boring and ok jobs yet never have the courage to try
something different. In this situation, it is perhaps healthy to actually quit
the job and try it. In the worst case, your new startup fails, you learn
something, you return to another boring job. But I guess you will feel much
better about yourself, as a human being who has the courage to follow your
dream, rather than as a boring person who always complains about the boring
job.

~~~
cooldude127
That's not the worst case though. The worst case is the possibility of ruining
your finances because you have no income while trying your startup. And what
if you can't find a job when you finally give up?

It's not a decision to take lightly.

~~~
msort
Well, staying at a boring job is not very healthy to career too. The worst
case is losing one's job when economy is down.

Quitting job is not the solution. Finding interesting jobs (as an employee or
founder) is perhaps the solution.

------
bhattas
The startup process has several validations built into it. First when you
pitch it to your friends you see how they react..maybe build a prototype and
see traction. Its not like you wake up one day, and go...I am going to quit my
job and do a startup. The balance is how much you trust other people's opinion
vs your own instinct.

------
amichail
The article is contradictory: in one context being nervous is a bad thing but
in another context it is considered good.

~~~
swombat
That's not contradictory. Or else, you find that being able to blow on your
soup to cool it or on your hands to warm them is contradictory.

Context _is_ everything.

------
sebastian
I other words what the article is suggesting is forget about your dreams, your
personal goals and the ideas that along with percisentence could have a chance
to make you feel good about yourself, your life and maybe even help you
actually enjoy the limited amount of seconds that you have to live and instead
be thankful for the opportunities you have been "given" and shut up because
things could actually be worse. Look at that 90% of the world that wish they
had half of what life have given you.

It's incredibly sad how what the article suggest is exactly what the majority
of the world does when what we really are supposed to do with our life is so
simple.

Life is short, try to enjoy it no matter what, never give up on you. If you
have to spend all of your life trying to make work whatever it's you want to
do and that you think it will make you happy, do it. Because if you don't, if
you give up and do what you are "supposed" to do, what is safe, what society,
your education, your family and your religious "beliefs" have tried to imposed
on you will never be happy. That is guaranteed. But, hey! worse nothing than
what you already have! right..

~~~
robfitz
You can't will your rent payment into existence, and you won't fully enjoy
your admittedly short life while deciding between another week of spaghetti or
tuna.

He is saying you should work on developing your skills until you are good
enough to be able to succeed in pursuing your dreams. You know, learn to
skydive before jumping. It sounds as if you're suggesting everyone just throw
themselves off the cliff.

~~~
sebastian
The problem is that if we tell ourselves to wait until timing is right, we
will make sure timing is never right.

It all comes down to the fact we are just scared of giving up the illusion of
security or what is "convenient" even if that convenience is what is keeping
us from achieving our goals, from what is truly important to us.

We will make sure we do anything possible to postpone the moment when we can
say are I'm "ready".

Even if being ready just comes down to having enough money saved so we don't
have to eat spaghetti or tuna while we work on our dreams, the story always
goes something like this:

You want to have enough $ saved so you don't have to worry for 6 months and be
able to just focus on yourself, on whatever you really want to do.

Once you have that $ saved you might tell to yourself, well, but things never
work out the way we plan them so I think it would be better if I have enough
saved for a year. I just need to keep doing what I would love to quit for a
couple more months, and that's it, I will be ready then. Since that reasoning
actually makes sense to you you end up postponing it for a bit longer.

A few months later you find yourself either worried about things like the
economy, or maybe you think you need more money, or anything else you can come
up with to justify postponing your dream and you keep doing it over and over.

The time is never right. You just have figure out what the worse case scenario
would be, what could happen if everything you though you knew was absolutely
wrong and what options you have to go back where you started in the event you
fail. The chances are once you are aware of it, it won't be that bad as you
though and hopefully you won''t longer be scared and will quit what you need
to quit to invest your time on yourself.

~~~
Psyonic
While I agree with most of your comment, there is something to be said for
preparation. Do you think it's unwise of me to wait until after I pay off my
student loans (a year, perhaps) to quit my job and start my own business? Keep
in mind that student loans are one of the only loans you can't get out of with
bankruptcy. This is the kind of very specific preparation that doesn't have to
keep escalating. I'm reasonably comfortable walking away from a failed startup
with nothing; what I'm not comfortable with is being saddled with an ever-
growing debt I can't get rid of.

------
Tichy
Don't do a startup, because some Yoga teacher failed with her Yoga studio.

------
mattiss
In order to not be nervous this guy first has to finish is Ph.D from MIT. Then
and ONLY then will he be able to start a successful company. I would bet that
the vast majority of successful software entrepreneurs have much less than a
Ph.d. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if even the relative percentages of
Bachelors to Ph.ds starting successful companies is higher. In my experience a
lot of people go for their PH.Ds because they don't know what they want to do
and don't feel like getting a real job.

------
cloudkj
Anyone know what Manhattan-based startup incubator he's talking about?

