Quitting Your J.O.B.

by Larry Chiang

Most people have J.O.B.S. –just over broke syndrome… I hack life like a computer program and you should learn from my ‘life hacks’ too.

Have you seen the movie, the Matrix? In it Keanu Reeves learns Jiu Jitsujust by reading lines of computer code. Life in this real world is similar if you recognize patterns. After you pattern recognize, you pattern replicate and along the way you pattern iterate. For this blog post, I will be your Morpheus. He was Kaunu Reeves mentor. As your teacher, I won’t kick your lip until it bleeds but I will hold your hand via my twitter account.

As your mentor, I am going to break you bad news right away. You’re going to need to work harder at your current job and get a second job.

I am kidding!!

Here are five ideas I want to share. You will hack treasure management on the way to getting enough money to quit your job.

-1- Stock up on treasure by solving a problem.

I have this program I teach at my community’s college. You start a micro tiny business that is a form of lemonade stand business. Mark Cuban talked about this for college students where kids would sell shoe laces. Ideally the business you start is a moonlight business. Yes, a business that you start after you go home from work. If you’re curious about doing this Google “Ga Ga Guaranteed” exits.

I am exposing these ideas to Stanford Engineering students this summer. Yes, the Palo Alto’s Community’s College I teach at is Stanford. But don’t be intimidated. Like Mark Cuban’s business ideas, they are executable by a 7th grader.

I recommend you solve a problem of an old person.

Err, I mean “seasoned executive” aka person older than thirty. They have big problems and do not understand the most basic of technological solutions. Create a visual-dashboard-metric-that-emails-pie-charts-that-ratios-money-in-versus-money-out-using a Mint.com API call and they will love you forever (and pay you $29.95 a month automatically on their Recurly credit card).

Sorry, I was joking about joking. You will need to get a second job before you quit.

-2-Engineer up a Back Up Job Plan

Lets say you want to quit ASAP without a plan. There is no faster way to a bad or worse job than quitting with no plan and hoping for a hail-mary, life pass.

Plot spoiler, those passes are never completed.

This world is littered with cautionary tales of people without a plan or back up plan. For example, lets say you work selling chemicals for a Fortune 100 company called Nalco Chemical, but want to work on your book project called “What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School”… Your goal should be to get your day job down to 7am to 2:30 or 3pm. Your moonlight job, whether it is doing FICO credit score education for college students or producing entrepreneurial workshops is done from 2:30pm to 10pm. Yes, you will be taking vacation days at your current job to do your moonlighting job.

Engineer your schedule and stock up on treasure by solving an old person’s problem.

-3- Forget about an IF, THEN Life Statement. Do both now.

The cliche pattern to avoid is the IF-THEN. If I had more time to write, then I would.

Do not be a cliche and do both now. Hate me for being the messenger but you need to avoid the if then. Avoid the catch 22 and do both.

-4- Kill Five Birds with One Stone.

This is a pattern you should recognize. Successful people work hard and smart. I am getting you to work hard by doing two jobs. Now lets work smart. For example, I am CEO of Duck9 and teach at Stanford University. I want to raise a venture capital fund so I can be a VC. As a VC, I would quit the other two and be on vacation a lot and ski mid-week every week. So to be a VC…

I need a stone that kills five birds

My stone: Pop-Up Accelerator http://aonetwork.com/node/69402. Its a temporary fleeting event promotional in nature at *any* conference

My five “birds” I “kill:”

– Engineering up some momentumfor a company at a conference – Collecting real-world videos and pictures for them or my new moonlit project – Hosting a “minimum viable party” that costs no money and lasts just eleven minutes – Charm an industry leader / VIP / blogger to visit the space – Read my Yahoo article here on Anchor + Satellite events

http://voices.yahoo.com/anchor-satellite-events-live-action-case-study-at-11055892.html?cat=3 – Doing entrepreneurial jiu jitsu like Keanu Reeves

I realize I just added a third job, but it really is just doing one project

-5- Temporarily Run in the Red Zone

Have you seen people that are 40 that look 50.

Those are people that keep their engines in the 7000 RPM (revolutions per minute). In life, church and Jesus teach the 70-20-10 rule of treasure management under the concept called tithing. I wont address money’s treasure management but I will focus on treasure time management.

Just like money, time should be divvy’d up 70-20-10 with 70% your necessary work, 20% is invested time and 10% is donated. If you’re at the red line, you’re 110% core work, -5% invested, -5% donated. You know why presidents and Coach Mike D’Antoni age 5 yrs per year in office?! THEY are 130/-15/-15

Run like the 130/-15/-15 pattern I recognize for a little while and you should be able to have enough money so that you can be 50/20/30.

When you do, take part of that last 30 in the 50-20-30 and donate it back to the community by writing a Yahoo article explaining to others how you did it.

On twitter, send me your thoughts at http://twitter.com/larrychiang