Leaving a Corporate Job to Pursue Freedom

Fresh out of college, I moved to Seattle in August 2002 and excitedly started a full-time job at Microsoft.  Four years later October 2006, I left to pursue greater freedom of lifestyle.

Leaving Microsoft was a defining moment in my life and one that I am often asked about.  I didn't leave to pursue real estate investing specifically, but my rent-by-the-room home was a key financial factor that allowed me to feel comfortable leaving Microsoft when I did.  After leaving, I spent several years devoting myself to musical development and spiritual growth.  Later, I re-engaged with the financial realm by diving deep into real estate investing with fresh energy.

Last April, my music trio was interviewed as part of a blog called Open-Source Living.  I think some of the BiggerPockets audience might be interesting in the following excerpt, which touches on my departure from the corporate world.

No matter how much planning and saving is done in preparation to leave a corporate job, there will always a point where it feels like "taking a leap" with courage and faith (intuitive conviction that a positive outcome will occur).

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Q. Jeremy, you left the corporate world to follow your own path. What might you share with others who feel compelled to make a similar transition?

A. I greatly enjoyed my job at Microsoft and felt thankful for the opportunity to work there and learn about how large businesses operate. As time went on though, the desire to live a lifestyle of greater variety of schedule and freedom surged in me with increasing frequency and intensity. As I was able to develop musically in parallel with working at Microsoft, I resolved that I would make the leap to full-time music when some concrete musical opportunity arose that could support me financially, and not before. But there came a point where I changed spiritually and felt a sense of calm assurance that if I followed the desire to devote myself fully to music and other creative pursuits outside of the corporate structure I would find success, even without knowing the specifics of the path ahead. One key step that I took was to save enough money to be able to perform the “experiment” of leaving Microsoft while supporting myself for 6 months on savings even if I didn’t make another dollar. I also left the door open to return to Microsoft should I want to. When I left my job and began pursuing new endeavors, I found a great sense of fulfillment and new avenues opening all around me. I have never looked back. This is not to say that I would recommend to everyone that they quit their job in a vague search for freedom or increased creative expression. To anyone feeling compelled to make a transition out of a corporate job, I would recommend continuing to give 100% to your current job while putting continuous energy into self-reformation in the areas of time management, maintaining a perpetual positive attitude, thinking practically, and expressing your creative spirit in all duties. In parallel you can develop new lines of initiative toward what you’d envision doing if you left your existing job. Additionally, find time for regular periods of deep introspection, self observation, and analysis of your impulses and inclinations, so as to plunge underneath the waves of regular day-to-day consciousness and discover the calm voice of intuition, which points the way to success in all things.

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The full article appears here:
http://www.themonarchreview.org/open-source-living...