The prevailing model of success isn't designed for fulfillment or lasting influence.

Whether in corporate environments or entrepreneurial spaces, the culture rewards visible achievement, constant output, and validation-driven identities.

But that model comes at a cost: emotional burnout, unstable power, and a quiet erosion of self-trust.

It teaches high performers to lead with effort, not alignment. To strive for influence, instead of becoming it.

What it neglects is the inner architecture: identity, nervous system capacity, relational intelligence—the only foundation strong enough to sustain authentic power, prosperity, and peace.

My work exists to change this.

I help ambitious professionals and founders master the unseen dimensions of performance—so their success is not just strategic, but sustainable.

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The are deep dive essays I've written on the topic of performance psychology. They're FREE and UNGATED.

The problem with quitting your job to start an online business prematurely…because an expert told you so.

March 05, 20237 min read

Several years ago, I was hired as a U.S. Bank card member advisor in North Dakota. I was a broke college student who was barely scraping by, wanted to quit being a geriatric caregiver, and was lured by the concept of having my own cubicle.

Quitting your job for online fame

Seriously, my own cubicle!

It meant I didn't have to work long, grueling hours as a nursing assistant, and perhaps, I'll start wearing finer clothes to work. To me, I wasn't just getting a job; I was upgrading my career. I equated a career in the banking sector with elegance, affluence, and independence (haha!). In my mind, I was moving from being a seemingly unappreciated caregiver to completing more skilled tasks.

Fast-forward to 2018 as a nurse, writer, and creative coach, I laugh at my silliness. Looking back, I now recognize my desire to get into the banking system as a period of professional fatigue & discontent. Yes, I wanted to quit a soul-sucking job, however, my ideal career wasn't the answer to the discomfort I felt.

Which brings me back to today's problem: we've been told that the answer to feeling dissatisfied at work is to launch an online business. Make your own hours. Enjoy 10-20k months. Be your own boss.

Now, launching a business isn't the problem (pls don’t let me stop you). However, it is the merchandising of people's uncertainty that terrifies me. Like a vampire that feeds on blood, my colleagues in online marketing have latched onto any semblance of professional fatigue, baked it into amazing copywriting that preys on fears, and created coaching programs and courses worth thousands of dollars.

More on this later.

Let's take a closer look at the rush to quit your job and start an online business as the answer to professional disillusionment.

There's that Facebook ad with a luxury boat and a woman who looks like she's loving her life--with a glass of expensive wine in front of her. There's a guy in front of a white board doing some calculations to prove that you can convert X and Y audience into profitable membership models if you follow a formula.

And I get it; people are seeking for MORE. They aren't satisfied with the status-quo and want to be able to improve their standards of living. Heck, I only survived a week as a card member advisor when I realized that although having my own cubicle was nice, I couldn't field 10+ calls in an hour.

But what if the answer isn't quitting your job to hop on the laptop lifestyle? What if it's not creating a FREE facebook group, running a coaching program, and comparing your results to that of your companions?

What if the answer is simply giving yourself permission to go on an adventure? What if it's all about seeking an outlet for your creative and unrealized potential...doing something that lights you up and quenches the thirst for more?

Yes, MORE could be quitting your job and building an online empire. But it’s not the result for many of those who have been victims of vampires of 6-figure marketing.

Yes, they want to make 10k months. Until they're faced with managing email lists, growing an audience, securing podcast interviews, developing coaching programs and courses, dealing with rejection, and ultimately, getting burned out.

Yes, they want the mojito on the beach lifestyle. But without the hustle that comes with being a "business owner."

Here's the problem with creating an ideal career without understanding it, and making a leap without having a support system:

  • You eventually hate your life.

  • You think we’re all spewing garbage.

  • You call it a marketing scam and pyramid scheme.

  • Online marketing loses it's novelty and overtime, is no longer a dream career.

So, what are the keys to a crazy-inspired career?

1) YOU DON'T HAVE TO MONETIZE EVERY SINGLE IDEA YOU HAVE.

You can create an epic adventure, a getaway to refuel your creative insights without slapping a dollar amount on it.

Cait Flanders is a personal finance blogger who writes about her journey towards paying off $30,000 of debt, going on a year-long shopping ban, and rebuilding her financial life in the process on a blog called “Blond on a Budget.” A couple of years later, she landed a book deal which became a Wall Street Journal Bestseller.

In this blog post, she mentioned that not monetizing her blog actually gave her paid opportunities; she was hired because the recruiter was impressed that she could manage multiple projects, deadlines...and her blog posts were error free!

When we experience negative events, we need to check in with ourselves to see if 1) we’re capable of dealing with this and 2) It won’t send us spiraling into a creative low.

Yes, you can monetize your ideas. But there are so many bullshit detectors out there that would wanna know that you know what you’re talking about and care about your topic. Be a conversationalist first.

Again, don't think about money (yet). If you want to be entrepreneurial, test your ideas to make sure they hold. How? Start a conversation around a topic and build an audience willing to learn more about your chosen idea.

But don’t be switching business ideas every 3 months like baby diapers and asking folks to pay all the time. Give us time to know who you are and what you do!

2) BUILD A PLATFORM AND CREATE ORIGINAL PIECES OF CONTENT.

I don't know if you've heard me say this but I stumbled into the world of online marketing by accident. My writing was discovered by someone who eventually became my mentor, and it's been a rollercoaster ride since then.

Back then, my blog served as a means to release the creative energy I had inside, skills and unused potential that weren't active in my caregiving job. But my blog also served as my publicist as it opened up doors of opportunities I never knew existed.

We see this all the time; YouTube gurus amassing followers and views in the thousands, attracting brands and landing sponsorships. Instagram models getting discovered by photographers who repost their content, causing them to become overnight sensation.

I’m not saying the exact same thing will happen to you. Rather, I’m saying that having your platform and content positions you as an expert which does attract fame and fortune.

Bottom line: build your own platform and create original pieces of content. Get an audience. The money part comes later (and hopefully, not too late).

3) YOU NEED TO HAVE A DARN OPINION AND CARE DEEPLY ABOUT IT.

Rather than becoming another online marketing drone in the world of sameness, I decided to do something different. That's right, I decided to go against the crowd by saying (and yelling from every rooftop), that you do not have to quit your current job to build an online business. I'm rebelling against the idea that your life sucks JUST because you work in a cubicle.

So, here's my opinion. You could quit your job if that's what you want. But I believe that preaching this as the ultimate solution to professional fatigue is a dangerous marketing sermon to broadcast. I want my lawyers in courtrooms. I want to have passionate nurses and doctors. I want teachers who care in classrooms. I want customer service representatives who see themselves as vital to the mood of citizens.

But I want them to also flourish creatively. I want their careers to be a blend of what makes them money and what lights them up. I want them in careers that allow for them to explore other versions of themselves. Now that's a crazy inspired career!

4) YOU DON'T HAVE TO SCALE TO 6 FIGURES AND BEYOND TO FEEL ACCEPTED BY ONLINE MARKETING VAMPIRES.

It's just a marketing message, not an actual marker of success.

If you are enjoying a crazy inspired career that allows you to blend all your interests AND make money from an online venture, yay for you. If want more and are feeling called to grow your company to hiring others, quitting your job, and doing it full-time, yay for you!

But, you definitely DO NOT have to race to the vampiric 6-figure mark.

Make peace with your 4-figure earnings if that's what brings you joy. As long as you’re paying your bills, saving some, and giving some. And if you’re loving your creative business more than your career, you have permission to create margins for what you desire most for yourself.

Okay. That’s it. For now, I think.


Next step:

If you are thinking about blending all your creative interests into one crazy successful career, sign up for my newsletter.

I write about the intersection of creativity, passion, and profit. I also share my own process towards doing my other creative endeavors via email. Sign up to be notified when the next post drops!

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Most performance psychology experts don’t know how to work with people who are high-functioning but internally misaligned. 

  • Over-pathologize them (like therapists who miss the leadership nuance).

  • Over-hype them (like coaches who keep pushing strategy without depth).

  • Or try to fix surface-level symptoms without touching the root.

So when a high-performing person walks into the room with results, leadership presence, and a full calendar—but internally feels fractured, empty, or disconnected—the tools most professionals reach for simply don’t fit.

This is partly because traditional performance psychology models are built around dysfunction or underperformance. They’re trained to spot deficits: anxiety, burnout, procrastination, self-sabotage. 

And while those patterns can exist in high-performing individuals, they often look different. They’re quieter. More refined. Often masked by achievement.

Herein lies the problem: there are very few spaces that recognize high performance as both a capacity and a coping strategy.

Very few practitioners can read the subtle signs of internal misalignment within someone who is still outwardly succeeding. And that’s the real risk: when someone high-functioning and misaligned is misunderstood, they don’t fall apart publicly. They fragment privately.

My work in performance psychology began when I noticed a concerning pattern among outwardly successful people - the greater their achievements, the more profound their internal disconnection often became. 

Of note was my own painful, private, and debilitating unraveling. Despite all the markers of success: working in high-stakes environments as a critical care nurse and leader, working as a PR assistant for a 7+ figure agency and drumming up publicity plans for personal brands on the back end, I felt…empty.

So, I spent over a decade learning and refining a process that addresses the specific challenges faced by leaders operating at extraordinary levels of responsibility and visibility.

After 7+ years in healthcare and helping successful brands get visibility, my work has evolved to helping you sustain your success so you don’t get crushed under the weight of that visibility and responsibility.

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