The Inner Battle Of Leaving a Business and Moving On

December 2010 was a particularly low point in my life.

The local Melbourne men’s dating forum decided to stop allowed paid advertising… The same paid advertising that was my main way of attracting clients.

Following that, my dating coaching business was falling apart at the seams.

My income went to close to zero overnight. I asked my parents for some money as I was figuring out my next move. I had no idea what it was.

As days elapsed, I knew one thing for sure.

I didn’t want to be a dating coach anymore. It was brewing within me for a year then, and when the business stopped bringing in money it was clear as day.

Being a dating coach was the coolest job I could imagine when I was 26, but it wasn’t nearly as rewarding anymore. I couldn’t find any internal motivation inside to save my business, let alone grow it.

It was time to move on – but I had no idea what I would be moving into.

At the same time, going from being my own boss to getting a job felt like a major step down. Having to live on someone else’s schedule and take orders seemed like it would be selling out all the freedom I worked to achieve in the last few years.

I spent most days at home, generally feeling like a piece of shit, incessantly contemplating my life’s direction, trying to make sense of it all. But all the options seemed wrong. I couldn’t make a decision.

With my 30th birthday just around the corner, I heard my self-talk echo through my head:

“Good work building a stable adult life”.

You might say I was stuck in a mild depression, or a quarter-life crisis.

Either way, it sucked balls.

The Myers Briggs Test

Trying to Google my way out of this existential mess, I somehow learnt of The Myers-Briggs – a well-known personality test.

I was skeptical to say the least, but I had nothing to lose. So I did the short multiple-answer test.

Taking into account my answers, I was told my Myers-Briggs type was “probably” an ENFP (acronym for Extroverted, iNtuitive, Feeling Perceptive).

As I read the ENFP personality profile, I was shocked at how well it described me. ME! I always thought that I had a pretty special personality and a hard time understanding my own motivations at times. I felt weirdly understood reading it, like I was sitting across from a clairvoyant.

I should mention that I was cautious of potential “cold reads” – general statements that are true to most people, but are phrased in clever ways making people feel uniquely understood (e.g. most magazine horoscopes).

But this went far beyond cold reads. It was very specific. The profile described in a very accurate way the person I was, what my deepest motivations were and how I tended to behave in various situations.

It talked about my overwhelming need for variety, my drive for self-growth and self-exploration, and my strong ability for expressing myself.

As I kept reading, I felt energized. Line after line, I was having “a-ha” moments about my life. This felt important.

ENFP forum

Going back to Google, I started looking for more ENFP resources. Due to the test’s wild popularity, there were dozens of sites.

I ended up on an ENFP forum, its membership comprising of people who identified as such.

Reading their experiences was eye-opening. Members talked about unique defining experiences in their lives that closely resembled my own life experiences.

To name one example, many members reported moving to the opposite side of the world from where they grew up as they were going through journeys of self-discovery – just like I moved from Israel to Australia.

This was getting almost creepy.

Getting back to why I got there, I started reading about people’s experience with careers. This also resonated strongly.

Most ENFPs reported it being incredibly difficult, not to say impossible to commit to one career.

Each person had incredibly varied interests – they just wanted to do it all, in their own way.

This wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

Changing careers takes a toll

I should mention that at that point, I was getting tired of my unstable career.

I already spent 3 years in university getting a degree in computer science. This was very helpful in getting my Australian Permanent residency, and was very interesting to learn. But working as a programmer for 6 months made me realize it wasn’t for me.

The following 3 years were spent working as a dating coach. And now, I was moving away from that too.

Every time I moved directions it left me feeling confused about “not getting it right” – committing time to something that I grew out of.

It also left me in a financial tight spot, as I paved my way through a new career path.

And it was happening again now. I was broke, confused and miserable. I wanted this to be the last time.

ENFP careers

Many other ENFP forum members’ work experiences closely resembled mine.

It seems ENFPs loved change. Even the people who said they loved their jobs said they enjoyed their ever-changing nature – e.g. reporters, psychologists, actors and entrepreneurs.

Many reported going through many professions.

A 40-year old woman reported having been at various times of her life a masseuse, a kindergarten teacher, a personal assistant, a yoga teacher and a dancer. She was now studying to become a nurse.

She reported just “growing out of jobs” every so often. As a result, she said, life had never been boring, and she always kept growing as a person.

Another result was that she seemed to always struggle with money, never fully getting the financial benefit of her accomplished experience in a field.

All of this sounded very much like my life.

A different group of people reported an opposite experience – staying in a career way after its expiration date. They reported feeling depressed, wanting to do something different, but didn’t know what.

My life again.

Maybe there isn’t “One Thing”

Reading the forum, I could feel some major beliefs I had shifting.

Until then, I always thought everyone had that “one thing” that they would love to wake up and do every day.

Some of us just never found it – but it was a worthy pursuit to try and find it, because once you knew your “one thing”, it would make life simple.

For example, let’s take an imaginary Dude. Once Dude realized his “one thing” was to be a medical doctor, he would be filled with a passion to study medicine.

Dude would finish his studies and devote his life to helping his patients. Every day, doing his “one thing” would energize him and fill his life with meaning and satisfaction.

Well, I never found “one thing”. Since I remember myself, I have always been interested in a wide variety of things.

I couldn’t think of a line of work that I could devote myself to. Somehow, though, I always imagined it was out there, waiting for my to discover it.

But reading about similar people living a life of varied professions and pursuits did something to me.

It gave me permission to drop the belief in the “one thing” I could do forever.

Instead, my mind started racing. If I didn’t have to pressure myself with finding a single profession for the rest of my life, what would I do instead? What would I do if money weren’t an issue?

A more diverse life

I had the answer. I had a bucket list of experiences that I wanted to do. Things that were personally significant for me, that excited me to no end.

Perhaps, there wasn’t a single profession that could make me leap out of bed. But the idea of living out my dreams definitely energized the fuck out of me.

I could see my future life, working on various goals and pursuits for different periods – from writing to traveling, from running to building muscle, from learning salsa to learning languages. It seemed like it would go well with my nature. It sure felt right.

And if my life was going to go in phases, I knew what I wanted the next phase to be.

I had one more interest that could fund all the other interests. It could become the foundation to the building of my life.

I wanted to learn SEO – online marketing on Google. If I nailed it, I could make a living working anywhere.

If I really nailed it, I could create websites that make me money automatically, taking away the need to work and freeing up all my time.

I even knew someone who had been doing it – he left to travel the world a few years before. It was possible.

There were two problems though. Firstly, I had very little experience with online marketing.

Secondly, I was stressed about not having an income. This was a bad psychological place to start a new business.

On the other hand, I resisted looking for a job. I felt like it would be a step down after being my own boss. I was worried I’d go back to the employee mentality and lose all the freedom I had.

Everything seems too hard when you have mild depression, and this… seemed impossible.

I went back to the Google black hole and kept distracting myself. But the idea started germinating in my head.

Getting a job = selling out?

Fast-forward a month. Many TV-show episodes watched. Not much else.

I was about to get on a Skype chat with my mom. Living in Australia, we would have good long Skype catch  every few weeks.

My mom and I have a good, honest and open relationship. She’s great at listening and I’m great at not shutting up. It works perfectly.

I was telling her how I was feeling.

How I didn’t want to be a dating coach anymore, but still hated the idea of getting a job.

How I felt like looking for a job would be “selling out” my ideals.

Seeing my face in the Skype video feed, I didn’t recognize myself. I couldn’t smile even to make my mom feel appreciated. Tears were streaming down my face.

“Oh sweetie. I just want to be there with you and give you a big hug.” She said.

That would have been great at that exact moment.

“I think you should take care of yourself. I know you. You’re strongly independent. Not making money is making you feel really bad.

“Any type of work dignifies the worker”, she said to me. It’s a Hebrew expression and sounds way better in Hebrew, but the sentiment is clear. I was clearly not dignifying myself living like this.

She was right. (Thanks Mom! <3)

Finally, a Plan

I needed to take care of myself. First and foremost I needed to get a job and make money. With the money I made, I could start a business.

But I wasn’t just going to get any job.

The plan was to get a job in an SEO firm, and using the knowledge I would learn there to launch my own business.

And that’s exactly what I did.

To be continued.