In need of a little #MondayMotivation?
I recently came across this video of Joe Rogan and Gary Vaynerchuck talking about quitting your job. Both are people I follow and listen to and read regularly. What Joe Rogan is saying in the video is the epitome of this blog and why I started it, so I wanted to share. Listen very closely to what he’s saying.
The YouTube video is above and I’ve also transcribed Rogan’s text below:
Most men live lives of quiet desperation.
It’s one of my favorite quotes ever, because it’s true.
You’re in this world where you just can’t wait to run away.
But I think one of the reasons why people have this deep seated anger and resentment is that there’s a bunch of people out there that have these lives that are deeply unsatisfying because I think there are so many people that are working all day long doing something that is deep unsatisfying and almost painful to them. Soul killing.
You’re stuck in traffic all day and then they’re stuck in a cubical after that. They relish the time to take a shit in the bathroom and look at their phone. That’s a highlight of someone’s day. They get in traffic on the way home. They get home after that they’re watching television.
I think if people have a regular day job, if you can just find one thing you do as a passion project and just keep building on it. Keep watering it. Keep adding fertilizer. Keep giving it attention. Keep giving it focus and you can escape and you can be self-serving. You can be okay. You’re gonna be okay.
Look man, making furniture feels good. If you can do that, you could cut those corners perfectly and sand everything down nice and stain it. And then it’s done and you get the satisfaction. And you sell it to someone and that pays your bills. That is infinitely more satisfying than being stuck in some fucking cubicle working for someone you don’t want to work for, having these stupid fucking office meetings, talking to people in Human Resources, sitting down with your supervisor, where they evaluate your job performance: “You really need to be enthusiastic about this company.” “This company is your future.” You’re like “Fuck. Kill me now.”
You know there’s a lot of people out there that would way rather do something else and I hope they understand that they can. And people that are trapped in bad situations, one of the problems is, you feel like this is your future and you can’t get out of that. There’s no hope. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no rainbow. And if you feel like that, that alone can be incredibly defining and limiting. But if you can look at, if you can look at yourself objectively and say “Okay, I’m in credit card debt. I’m working in a shitty job, I don’t like what I’m doing. But I have some ideas. I need to feed those fucking ideas. I need to feed them. And water them. And I need to set aside a certain amount of time everyday to just try to make those things happen. You can do that.
Everyone has a different personality. They have different interests. Different things that they would be really satisfied pursuing. That’s not encouraged. What’s encouraged is go find a job. What’s encouraged is go find some place, that you can shove yourself into, go find a square hole, you can stick your round peg and just fucking jam it in there and shave down the top and bottom so you slide in with all this extra space on the sides and feel like shit the rest of your life. Because you need a job. Because you’re in debt. Because you have credit cards. Because you have student loans. Because that’s what everybody does. And so you do it too. That’s what’s wrong. You have an apartment you have to pay for. You have a car you leased. You have a wife you need to feed. You have a child you have to raise. You have to. You have your mortgage. You have your this, you have your that. And that’s where it all comes from.
Well the opportunity takes place usually when you’re young and you don’t have any responsibility. That’s when you have your options. Well your options are severely limited the more you gather responsibilities. Like if I had to as a 51-year-old father of three, married man, pays taxes, has a house and a mortgage, and a business and all that jazz, if I had to quit everything now and struggle as I struggled as a stand-up comedian, it would never work. But, the only way I could be this person now is if I took that chance when I was 21. When I was dead broke and had my cars repossessed and all that stuff. That’s the only way you ever get where you want to go. You have to take a path that’s dangerous, and most people want to take the safe path. And the safe path leaves you stuck in quiet desperation. Almost every time. It’s hell.
The way you can change is you have to put aside enough money to give yourself a window. And then you have to have a plan, and you have to spend all your waking hours outside of whatever shit job you do planning your escape. And you have to come to the realization very clearly that you fucked up. And you got yourself stuck. So whatever you’re doing, do it like your life depends on it. If you’re going to try and be an author and you’re working eight hours a day, plus commuting, plus family responsibilities or whatever else you have, whatever time that you have, you have to attack like you’re trying to save the world. You’re trying to save your life. You don’t want to drown. That one and a half hours a day that you have to write — Goddamn you better be caffeinated and motivated. You gotta go. You gotta get after it. And you gotta have discipline. Most people don’t have those things. Most people don’t understand what it’s like to really go for something. And to know the consequences of not doing that are horrific.
Quit Your Job 