A resignation letter . . . to myself.

Because it’s time for a new beginning.

Dear Frank,

I’m sorry to say that I’m going to have to hand my notice in today. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed working for you. I love all the ideas you develop and the energy you bring to them.

I know it’s been a tricky time the last 18 months what with illness, a changing business environment, and then suddenly covid. That, obviously, has changed everything.

I know that even you have had to take a normal paying job to keep the devil from the door, I know that your bankroll has nearly been halved. It probably isn’t over yet.

I’ve had the same pressures. And that quote from Einstein just keeps playing in my head:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein

I can’t keep doing the work and not getting paid. I’ve got bills.

I can’t keep doing the work and being shamed for lack of success.

I can’t keep doing the work on one project and then jumping to the next before the first has finished.

I can’t keep trimming my expenses. I’ve got kids. I want to get a new house.

I can’t keep taking on projects I don’t love in the hope of getting a big payout.

I can’t keep working all the hours I do.

I hope you understand. But then, even writing this, I know you’ll say:

“Life is about accepting the challenges along the way, choosing to keep moving forward, and savoring the journey.” ~ Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

You will say to me:

What’s good isn’t easy. Have faith.

Then you’ll say:

Take a job if you have to, but don’t get trapped there, that’s the road to a life of slavery — is that the sum total of your plan?

Instead, let’s use this moment in time as an opportunity to become effective — not just more efficient at going nowhere and being busy. That’s just lazy.

You see, we’re incredibly efficient at making a lot of work for ourselves but when we work for clients, they’re amazed at how quickly we can get things done; and in how short a time. They even ask us to take longer so they can bill out more.

Come on, let’s do that now. Let’s say for every project we have we are going to do the following:

1. Focus on simplicity and being effective not efficient.
2. Time box each project to four hours per week.
3. Finish what we start.
4. Outsource wherever possible.

We know this works. We’ve seen it and done it for others. Now let’s do it for ourselves. So, go fruit picking if you have to, drive an Uber, become a virtual drag queen, take the grant money, the business loan, the furlough . . . whatever works for you. Cull anyone who tries to shame you from your life. Set that boundary now.

And then let’s get to work, not that nine-to-five drudgery for the rest of your life work — but the stuff that makes you get up in the morning raring to go. The thing that’s going to give you a future you want to live.

Be authentic

• If it ain’t joyful, don’t do it.
• If it isn’t something that you wouldn’t do after covid, don’t do it.
• If it isn’t something you can scale, or sell-off, or simplify so that it can run even when you’re not there — then don’t do it.
• If it isn’t something that shows your kids what fulfilled really looks like, don’t do it.

Covid won’t last forever

Either we’ll find a vaccine, learn to live with it, develop partial immunity, or if the world goes into total lockdown for 1–3 months to make the earth uninhabitable for viral life, well then, just think that whatever we get going now will be ahead of nearly all the competitors coming out the other side.

You and me, we’ve lost everything before to outside circumstances and we’ve got it back and then some. Because it made us stronger and more fluid.

Turn towards the fear.

And you know that when the fear makes you think small, that’s the time to think bigger. Think really big.

So . . . are you up for it?

And I’ll say yes. In part because I always do. But mainly because I’ve fallen into the thinking-small trap these last few years and I know that whenever we aim high and don’t settle for mediocrity, life always gets better.

And not because of an increased bank, or more things, but because life is then truly worth living. Don’t lock yourself in a prison of your own devising. Like that apocryphal line in the Shawshank Redemption says:

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

So yeah, hell yeah! Let’s do what we need to do to survive and let’s seize the will to thrive.

Just discard this resignation letter and let’s get to work. Let’s also rest and enjoy the time with family. Life begins again.

All my best,

Frank.