On my own again

After about a year since I joined AGENDA, I am striking it out on my own again. Lot’s of friends and colleagues have asked me why and it’s quite difficult to explain. To help explain (and remind myself why I made this decision), I’ve created this little graphic:

Those who know Seth Godin will recognise it as “The Dip” from his book of the same name. The Dip is the crappy part that you need to push hard and slog through before you achieve massive success.

For me, I will transition from a pretty good career on the left to the life goals and the things that are important to me on the right. Along the way I know and expect to get caught in the Dip, but this graphic will help remind me exactly why I’m doing this and the rewards that await me when I slog through. Yes, afternoon naps are really a life goal for me

On the top of the list of my life goals is living fully and consciously. With this I mean that I want to decide my life’s path and not just ‘flow along’ with everything else. Too many people just allow themselves to flow along in life. I want to be able to guide my way towards something I can call my own, that I will look forward to when I wake up each morning.

Quitting my job and running my own business is the only option I see (at the moment) that puts me in direct control of my journey towards my life goals. I like having a job, and I’m not saying my employer sucks, but it’s too easy to get caught up with work and end up just doing stuff blindly or un-consciously. Man, that sounds like crazy hippie talk.

Making this decision is not easy and involved a lot of thought. Now that I’m married, it’s not all about myself and my lovely wife, Pei Chyi, has really been supportive throughout. Thank you dear, I really couldn’t do it without you.

Stay tuned! It may take a while, but in my next post I’m going to describe what I’ll be up to. Thanks everyone for your support.

Update 6 July: I’ve launched my business site