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Stop Asking for Permission. Start Acting.
Michael Lim once wrote, “Asking for permission is fear disguised as a question.”
October 30, 2024, dawned cold. I woke up at my habitually early hour and sent the following message to my partners at the company I helped found as the minority owner.
A text is not the way to deliver this news but I want to give you both some time to process before we’re together.
I’m tendering my resignation with my last day of employment set at January 31, 2025. You’ll have my resignation letter by Monday at the latest.
I’d been sitting on this text for weeks before I sent it. Of course, a text isn’t the right way to resign from a company you helped found, but I’m not good with confrontation, and I worried how my business partner of fifteen years would take it if I dropped that bombshell on him in person. I knew he was going to need time to process without me in the room, so I settled on the text.
Truth is, I’ve wanted to start a software development company since before I met my current business partners. An awarded software project and a few circumstances at the day job precipitated the text after months of trying to juggle essentially two full-time jobs.
There were times when I felt stuck in my job, doing so much work relative to my compensation. I begged for help for more than fifteen months before we finally hired someone to help me do my job. Now, there are ten people doing the jobs I was doing alone less than two years ago.
I can’t call what happened between June and October 2024 a leap. It was more like a crawl toward doing what I’ve wanted to do for a decade and a half. If I’m honest with myself, I was waiting for someone to give me permission. Fear kept me stuck, waiting for a green light that was never going to come on its own.
I spent weeks drafting that simple text message, hesitating over and over to send it. But, waiting for the perfect way to leave would have meant not leaving.
The Drive to Do Something Else
The something else doesn’t have to be about work. Perhaps it’s about getting back in shape or fixing a troubled relationship. For me, I spent a long time telling myself I was building toward something…
