| I slowly walked up the stairs, one at a time, climbing to the third floor where all the administration staff worked. It was a big moment for me. I was about to hand in my resignation for a job I had held casually for many years. I wasn't in a hurry to see my boss to pass on the news because I hate disappointing people. My Income Security Blanket I've never had a full time job in my life, but this casual job I kept at the library in the University of Queensland in Australia was my security blanket. The pay was good -- $22 an hour. The work itself was mostly boring, but I had Internet access while at my desk, and plenty of spare time to work on my own projects in between helping students with their computer problems. At this point in my life I was already running two websites that both made money. I wasn't rich, but I earned enough to cover my rent and food. I had held off quitting my job because I liked knowing I had a few extra hundred dollars coming in each week as a backup for my online business. My business, like most early stage projects, fluctuated between good and bad months. Despite the ups and downs, on average the cash flowed consistently enough that I could rely on my business to supply my full time income. Learning To Trust Your Business The strange thing about being an entrepreneur is you never truly feel that your income will continue. As silly as this sounds, it's like every sale is a minor-miracle and a part of you doubts it will ever happen again. The longer you run a business, the more confident you get in its ability to continue to make money. You also start to understand the fundamentals and trust your numbers. It becomes less about faith that your dreams will come true and more about checking to make sure the key data points are where they should be. When I was about to quit the last job I would ever have in my life, I was still feeling very insecure about my future business success. For me at this time it was a whole lot more about faith that things in my business would keep working and I'd keep making money. I didn't feel entirely confident, but I was ready to take the leap and focus 100% on my own business. My Last Job... I sat down with my boss and began to explain that I'd be traveling overseas soon and would thus not return to work after my next few scheduled shifts. At the time I thought perhaps one day I might take back the job (a mental security blanket again!), but I never did. Things changed a lot over the next few years, but I was able to support myself financially thanks to some kind of online business from that point forward. Eventually surviving turned into thriving, and as my story goes, I went on to make over a million dollars online. This story of quitting my job is from September 29th, 2005 -- over ten years ago. I know the exact date because I wrote about it in a blog post on a very new blog I had only just started that year called Entrepreneurs-Journey.com. Here's an excerpt from the blog post, so you can see exactly where my head was at and why I finally quit my job... On many a time walking home from work I have been thinking about all the things I wanted to get done; the websites I need to launch, audio to record, software I need to learn how to use and articles to write. One of the most important lessons I’ve learnt as a business owner is patience. I’m not 100% in zen with my patience but I’m a lot better than I was and most of the time I feel content with my progress. On Monday I finally realized my job, regardless of how much “free” time it gives me to work on my projects, was standing in the way of my progress and slowing me down. It takes away a little bit of my freedom (I have to be somewhere at a certain time, not good for an entrepreneur who likes to work when enthusiasm takes hold), I can’t record podcasts or audio lessons, I can’t really process jobs or work on websites. It gives me the freedom to write articles and emails at work, which has been great, but now I want to devote myself 100% to the whole package and become completely devoted to my life as an Internet Business Entrepreneur. Today I finally made the leap and quit. I am 100% dependent on my businesses for income (that’s a scary thought!) and I am so very excited about getting stuck in and really kicking some goals. It took some thinking, some pondering, but really the choice was a no brain-er and now I can spend my time growing my online projects. No doubt the pressure to maintain financial stability will be further motivation for me and as any entrepreneur that has ever quit his or her day job knows, there is no greater motivation than survival! While the decision to quit was a scary one at the time, I think I knew deep down that I was heading in the right direction and I would be okay. If you're feeling something similar right now, perhaps it's time you pencil in a date to quit your job, or give up some kind of security blanket you have that holds you back from 100% devotion to your online business. Sometimes you have to go all-in to take things to the next level and get to where you really want to be. Talk to you soon, Yaro Starak
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com | 
Hi! I'm Yaro Starak. I've been living the laptop lifestyle thanks to blogging since 2005.
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