Setting Your Quit Date featuring Ben Fox

Hello and welcome back to the show.In today's episode, we are confronting squarely in the face the idea of quitting our jobs when we find that we are constantly struggling and starting to feel unwell in the middle of it. This is not an easy decision.A lot typically weighs on the decision making of leaving our jobs and usually it takes something really significant to happen when we draw the line and say this is no longer a choice but a must do. I am joined by Ben Fox, a career coach based in New York City.And today we talk about how to approach the option of quitting our jobs with calm objectivity and relief. Ben helps senior software engineers leave toxic jobs and build careers that feel meaningful, energizing and aligned. And part of his work is helpingyou determine your quit date and supporting you with what's next, if that is the right thing for you. Here's another perspective shifting conversation that I hope you will enjoy. Ben, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me today.

Thanks for having me.

Before we dive in, because I know we have lots to talk about, why don't we just start with you telling our audience a little bit about yourself?

Sure. I started my career as a teacher. I was hired as an intern at a charter school here in Brooklyn in New York City.And two weeks in, the principal and I had a check in and she said, ben, congratulations. You're going to be the new third grade social studies teacher. It was wild.I'd never taught before and that's still the hardest thing I've ever done professionally to this day. After that, my dad, who's an entrepreneur, asked if I wanted to work with him. I said, yes, please, anything but teaching.I could use a break from that and want to try something new. And I loved having that intimate space and time to work with him. But also, see, how does a business get built?What are all the things you need to think through, people you need to talk to? It was a great learning experience, but I was missing what I got from teaching, which was this human connection, helping people grow and develop.So around 2015, I was thinking, how do I put these two things together? Entrepreneur growth and development, where do those meet? And I started doing what I help a lot of people do, which is experiment.Let me talk to therapists and social workers and guidance counselors and see is that the right fit for me. I've done therapy. It's been super helpful. People say it's therapeutic to talk to me, so maybe that's what I should do.And everyone said, ben, you need to go back to school, jump through this hoop, get that certification. No, thank you. I felt like I had something to offer already and I just didn't know what it was.The turning point came when I had this conversation with this person. She had a therapy practice and a coaching practice. We had never met. There was no skin in the game for her, for me to decide what I did with my life.And she stopped me in the middle of the conversation and she said, ben, it sounds like you want to be a coach. What does that mean? I've played soccer, football, I've had coaches. But what is a life coach? What is a career coach?This sounds like a snake oil salesperson fake, but the interest was there. So I kept experimenting. Let me find all the coaches of different backgrounds that I can and see what their life is like.How do you make money doing this? What do you actually do? And the deeper I got into exploration and experimenting, the more excited I became.And I thought, how can I get training to become a coach so that I don't just dive in without knowing what I'm doing? And I found one program where I could be a fly on the wall, just check out what's happening for a few hours for free.This was July 2015 in a basement conference room in a hotel in lower Manhattan. And I was blown away. I could not believe the types of conversations people were having about their lives and careers.And needless to say, two weeks later I signed up. 2016, I went through that year long training and immediately started coaching people my own business. And I've been coaching ever since. Past 10 years.

Funny how we get to our profession sometimes and the careers these days, they're not a straight line, they're not always obvious. But when things work out in our favor, we end up finding the place where we feel like this is the place I need to be.So it's interesting to hear you talk about how you got there and I think we will come back to this and some of the learnings you've had through that when we talk specifically about the clients that you support. So why don't you tell us about the types of clients you help and what problems do you help solve?

Sure. So the past 10 years has been its own windy journey as a coach, first in my own business.And I loved getting to work with different clients of all backgrounds as I was diving into what it meant to be a coach. But I couldn't really make the business work. I didn't know what I was doing, didn't really have support. So 2019, I went and found a full time job.My then girlfriend was like, you need a job? I was like, you're right, sounds fair. It was really fair. I needed it and I started working. I got hired at a coding boot camp here in New York.I saw that coding boot camps were hiring career coaches to help their students transition from the career they were in with the training they were getting to a career in tech, typically software engineering, but sometimes data analysts, data scientists. And I found one. I was so impressed by these people who were former teachers, lawyers, chefs, you name it. Like all these.A lot of these people were shifting, some were already tech focused into this whole other career. And after three months of like really intense training, they could make it work. So I just found that fascination with that decision.And also just that my brain and engineer brains worked really well together. I'm not a software engineer by any means.

If it's a match, it's a match.

It's a match.And what I've found in the past seven years since I had that job was I myself was working at different companies and had different moments where I would. That first job, I was speaking up a lot on behalf of my clients to the leadership and got kind of railroaded at times. Not really listened to.Things I said were dismissed.And even to the point where one client who I regained his trust because he didn't want anything to do with the company, he's like, I'll only talk to you, Ben. And I said that leadership decided to reach out to him and he was like, I'm sorry this was going well, but I don't trust our connection anymore.So that and other things has shown me what a lot of people deal with in their jobs, which is misalignment with the actual work with leadership overwork. Um, so throughout the past seven years, again, I've had those experiences as an employee that have really informed how I help people.And I'll say that the thing I focus on now, which I like that it's somewhat controversial, is helping burnt out or misaligned software engineers and people in tech quit toxic jobs.

I love that you're so clear about that and that you acknowledge it's controversial. And I'm asking myself, I wonder why we would say that.But on one hand I get it right, but on the other hand, most people will assume, well, is it the job to try to make things work and for things to be better? And at what point does quitting or exiting become the right thing to do or the right solution? And I don't know how you.You know, what patterns you've noticed.But normally, when I've worked with individuals who are misaligned, who are burnt out, the idea of leaving the job, even if it's acknowledged as part of the problem, can be really difficult because they always say, you need to have a plan B, have the next job set up before you go. So it's controversial in that it's counterintuitive to all the rules we were probably raised to understand about protecting your career.How have you perceived it with your clients? Like what?When they come to you and they ask for your help and you talk about what you do, what's the emotional response to the idea of you have to leave this job or get them to decide that's the right thing for them?

Yeah, great question. I say this to more and more people these days.Not everyone I work with ends up quitting their job, but everyone ends up with a different and usually transformed relationship to work. When I bring up this idea of, let's say, a quit date, people either put it way down the line or they say, ben. No, they just outright dismiss it.Which I think is relevant, culturally speaking, for a lot of people, as you just mentioned. Gotta have plan B. Yeah. Gotta have the next thing lined up before I leave this.And the situations I find people in that is often not the most helpful. So there's a few elements to this.One is I really focus on people who've been in their engineering journey for 10 plus years, specifically because these folks have been doing a great job with saving and investing and 401k, like, they've got assets built up and they've done great. And I'm always proud of clients when they're able to tell me how well they've done.So one of the first things I had people do is this tool I created, which is called what's my Runway? What are the actual numbers, the facts of your situation? If you were to get fired today, how long would you be okay?And when people go through that exercise of seeing how much they've actually saved and invested and how long that Runway is with the full knowledge that, like, if you have two years of Runway, we're not trying to use all of your assets to be okay, maybe like a few months, so you can take care of yourself. The other part is a lot of these folks have a significant other who might be working, so it even extends things out more.So a lot of what I'm doing with folks in the beginning is seeing what's going on with their reaction, what's behind this fear. And it's so consistent across people who could retire right now.I've worked with some of those folks to people who maybe have six to 10 months that having their job is so tied to financial security, and that is like our survival today. And in the US I know it's different in Europe. There's not a lot of safety nets.So the idea of cutting out your, your income and your benefits, your health benefits to people is. Is crazy. And I don't use that word lightly like it seems out of this world because their amygdala is going off.Oh, my God, I'm gonna lose all my benefits and then I'm gonna lose my house, and then we're gonna have to be on the street. Yeah.

When you talked about this example of working through the Runway and looking at what they actually have, it sounds like that kind of helps create some relief or maybe demystify some assumptions or some stories that they might be telling themselves about their ability to actually leave the job sometimes.And maybe in other cases, whether it's about the money or not, there might be still some very pervasive beliefs or thought patterns or narratives about deciding to leave a job. What else are you noticing in addition to financial security that plays into this decision making? Yeah.

I'll give you an example through someone I just finished working with, let's call him John, for an anonymous hi, John. Hey, John.John works, has worked here in the US as an accountant for 20, 23 years, I think, and ended up quitting his job last spring because his health was so. This is before we even met.He was seeing my LinkedIn posts and he's told me, like, seeing that gave him this comfort that someone else got it, that he didn't have to stay in such a bad environment because his health was really not great.He was putting on weight, didn't have time for significant relationships like with his husband, and it was either leaving or facing some serious health consequences. Through our work together, a lot of what we did was therapeutic in nature. He even said, like, you feel like a career therapist.Like, that's interesting.

That's. That's something else.

But I get that it's therapeutic because a lot of what we were doing is looking at his relationship to work and the work situations he was in.And part of what I think made it hard for him to stay being in a more leadership type of role is feeling like, I've got these people who are reporting to me that I need to take care of. I want to make sure people See that I'm doing a good job. I don't want to be labeled in a type of way like someone who can't handle this.A lot of self criticism or unease about the idea that he was a quitter, couldn't handle this. And I think the situation he was in was such overwork, so much on his plate that it was hard to see just how much of an impact it was having on him.And a lot of what I tell people who've been in that for years is there's a debt to pay.Part of why I have the idea of quitting front and center is because when people are in that situation and try to find a next job and they're burnt out or they're exhausted, they don't have a lot of time and energy, that's the foundation they're trying to launch to the next step to. And instead of running towards something that they really want, they're running away from something that they really don't.

What's the trade off here and what's the opportunity cost and what's the debt to pay by staying where you are? And to your point earlier, right.Maybe in the end quitting isn't the answer, but it's creating this capacity to think differently about your situation, to create maybe some distance today, which I know is easier said than done when you're in that state of, you know, you're at the dip of it, like potentially you're working with a number of clients who feel like they're at their worst by the time they come to you. And so it's helpful to think about not being stuck in the present, creating some distance and looking at what could be possible.Share a couple of other examples you've had about how this switch happens of I can't do this. Quitting is an option to let me actually explore that possibility. Right. That first step to consider an alternative.

One client who also here in the States was a engineering manager. So I've been an engineer for most of her career, I think 20 or so years, had a lot of direct reports, was at that kind of level. Managing managers.And she and her partner were both working and had been working since they were 14 or so.

Wow.

Without. Without break here in the States, it's pretty wild to me.And I think most people would agree that other than school breaks where maybe you had a summer off, once you're working, once you're a professional, maybe you have that two week at the end of the year or just not a lot of time off in general Unless you're taking, like, a leave of absence or you figured out a month in between jobs. Really intense. So for this client, let's call her Kelly, the idea of leaving was not even in her. It wasn't even relevant.When we started working together, I think I had planted the idea through her seeing my LinkedIn posts, but it was this otherworldly way of operating, like, it's so foreign to people, especially. A lot of people I work with have been working since they were teenagers without much of a break, even if they were in school at the same time.And a lot of that is cultural. Like, hey, you gotta work hard. You should be working until you retire at 65, whatever, and then you can enjoy. Mike, this is all backwards.You're young now, you have energy now. You can enjoy your life. So with Kelly, the more we work together, the more she could see that, yeah, this really isn't working.And part of what was changing her mind was we did create some new boundaries. A lot of people have trouble with people pleasing work with a lot of people pleasers who are simultaneously very ambitious and can do a lot of work.Kelly didn't have the best boundaries with work, and it was eating into her home life. Another turning point was she was like, I snapped at my kids. I don't want to be that type of parent.And I think I'm getting goosebumps talking about that. I've worked with a lot of parents. Like, these are people you love the most. These children, your babies.And that time you're not going to get back watching them grow. So for her, in that moment, she could see that this wasn't right. And when we did that exercise of what's your Runway?She saw, I think she said to me, we could actually retire right now if we just changed up some of how we're spending money and be fine for the rest of our lives. I'm like, what a gift, right?

That's amazing job. Yeah. But I think you're raising an important point around just culture and upbringing and also the social structure you live in and work in.Because I grew up also in a country where you go to school, you better be at a good school, you better get good grades, and then you better get to a reputable university in order for you to land a decent job. And by the way, by the time you get to that point, you better stay in that job for as long as you can.If you choose to leave, you better have plan B set up. I mean, you can see where this is going, right? And that's how it's exhausting to think about it.But we cannot eliminate the fact that these are very real circumstances that people have to work with.And even if you do have savings, even if you do have, if you've prepared for your future, like Kelly realizing, like, we could actually retire right now, there's still sometimes this narrative that maybe points to things like your identity is tied to your job, or the idea of not working or working differently is just unusual, maybe in your societal structure and so on and so forth. So it's interesting to hear all of this play out, out. And it resonated with me so much talking about parents, because I.It was also only after I became a parent that I was pretty much forced to reassess this relationship with my profession and my career.So coming back, Ben, to this idea of attaching our identities with our work, I've noticed with the clients I've worked with who've gone through burnout, there's so much of this identity that comes into play. And it sounds like, well, this is the only thing I've ever done. So, you know, how could I imagine doing something else?Or what am I worth if I can't keep up with this? Or, you know, what will people think about me when they've always known that I could overachieve or that I'm that person who gives 120%?These are the narratives that come out when people start confronting the prospect of staying at their jobs or leaving. What have you found with some of the clients that you've worked with?

It's a wonderful question. So much of this is about identity. I'm actually working with a client right now who just turned 60, who's been in his job for 14 years.Let's call him Fred. Fred is in a logistics type job where they deal with artwork and other expensive items and ship them all over the world.And he's been there for 14 years.And especially with age, which there's a ton of ageism in the US And I think just in general around careers, when these people actually have so much to offer, which is the saddest part of it, you've got so much wisdom.So Fred, the idea of quitting his job, which is a lot of what our conversation is about, is so clear that it's the right move, but at the same time not having the knowledge of what exactly is next is this roadblock. It's what you were saying for. If I'm not this job, who am I? And I'll remember this forever. And I bring it up to him a bunch when we work together.He sent me a picture, I think it was last year or maybe the year before. We've been working together for a while of him on a Discovery flight to fly a plane and co pilot. You can do that.And it's been something he'd wanted to do for a long time. And he was so happy. He was radiant in this photo.And I remind him that leaving his job, it might be hard for us to know right away what exactly he should do. But he's given so much clues, so many clues about the things he cares about.So in that interim period where he's regaining his health, because he is pretty exhausted, part of what we'd be doing is re engaging with Spanish. He's wanted to be fluent. He's not, but he's close. Seeing friends and family that he hasn't been able to spend time with.He's an artist too, so painting, playing guitar, reading, like I know we could fill his time. It's just scary to not know what's next and for someone like that.And the more I've done this work in general, I tell people, let's not throw out your 20, 30 year career and necessarily switch into something unless you're so clear that this is the next step or through our work together, you figure that out. That career can be used in new ways. It's like a piece of clay that we just need to reform so that you might end up in work that is somewhat similar.It doesn't have to be the same because that's where you're going to be most effective. And there's reasons you got into it that are really good and there's parts of it that you actually care about that we want to highlight.Again, making that leap to what's possible maybe a year down the road or half a year down the road is really scary because it feels like the abyss.But when I help people actually move past that moment, we start to see that they're so thrilled to re engage with themselves in a way that feels fun and includes the things they're passionate about.

I think it's in a way normalizing to say, like we all struggle with change.So what more when you've, you know, when you've committed yourself to a certain job or a certain profession and realizing I can't keep doing this and not knowing what's next. I mean it's not wrong to avoid it, to be scared of it, to reject it for a while until we probably realize like it's the right thing to do.So it's, I think, just for our audience listening to this, that if you're fearing that unknown, it's totally fair and valid to be in that space. Right. It's what you choose to do with it next.You also said something really important around recovery, which is there's we need to fuel ourselves again with energy, inspiration, motivation to figure out what's next. And that's probably really difficult to do, black and white, like, from moving from one job to the next. So I'm going to come back to that question.But I also want to underline something you said that's really important, which is moving on or leaving something. We don't need to diminish the value of that and what value that has accumulated over the years.It's maybe just a recognition of, well, there's something else probably that's better and more fitting for you at this stage in your life. It doesn't eliminate all the successes and all the experiences that you know have come before that.How do you help your clients who are fatigued, feeling really, in a way, cynical, sometimes being too long in a job that you have misalignment with.What are some of the things and even maybe advice you have for people who are really in that dip and are struggling to just look ahead and move forward?

This is why my focus has been on the option of quitting.And again, not to force people or convince, but to just show, hey, there are more than one option of you staying and suffering until you feel like you have to leave or until you find something else. So when people realize, oh, I have. I've got two years, I could leave my spouse or significant others on board.They're working, we're going to be okay. I can take some time. I bring up that idea of setting a quit date so that when they're in this work, their brain can calm down.And almost immediately, when we're clear, like, hey, I'm gonna quit in six weeks. I had a client who she wanted to quit. We started working together end of last year. She's like, yeah, I'll quit in August.She was just coming back from maternity leave and realized when she started working again, just, I don't want to do that.And the date kept moving up, which was fantastic because she had so much energy towards these other things she wanted to create that August became June became February, and here we are. So people who are like, in that dip, it feels like your job is going to never end, Especially if you haven't considered the idea of leaving.It feels like I'm stuck in this. I feel miserable.It feels like maybe even this is the best it's going to be because I haven't seen better, is the most I've been paid, most advanced I am in my career. I don't know what to do.I feel so stuck and trapped and I've had that before when I was working at a tech startup back in 2022, I felt like I don't know that I'll be able to make more money. I don't know that I'll be able to do well outside of this.And when I did this for myself Too back in 2022, when I realized, oh, I need to leave and I'm going to leave by this date, everything started to shift in my mind where, oh, that, that colleague that I really don't want to talk to or the boss that's a little heavy handed in their way of telling me what to do.Not that I'm going to ignore it, but I don't have to put as much energy into it because I'm putting energy now into what's next, into deciding to leave. Just last thought on this for now is that a lot of people get scared because they don't know the next ten steps after leaving.And I meditate a lot and I think about how all that matters is this current moment and the next step.

That's it.

Your body is screaming to you to leave this environment.If you listen to that, to hear the next step and the next step with support, like someone with myself, you'll be able to tune in to what your body is hungry for. With some help and some guidance. You don't have to worry because in that decision to quit, we'll find the other things that make sense to do next.

It's really helpful to sometimes just having kind of a milestone put in paper. I can imagine there are cases where it's okay for the milestone to move and also some cases where okay, this is now just a sign of avoidance, right?So I think there's always multiple scenarios here, but with the right support and the feeling of safety to say it's okay to put this date down, to be able to trust in the process that this is not careless, this is not irresponsible, this is not diminishing of anything.But with the right support, by creating some space in my brain and in my body to explore what's possible, the next steps will reveal itself over time with the right effort. So I appreciate you outlining that very clearly now Working with clients who they've agreed on the quit date.They're open to this idea that there is an alternative to all of this. How do you get them to explore creative solutions or different pathways for their careers? Your story showed me that you were very open minded.You were open to doing different things that probably you didn't expect to do.What I found with some of my burnt out clients, there's a very sometimes impulsive, and I don't mean that in a negative way, this feeling of, I just need to do something completely different. You know, I used to be fully employed as an engineer or as a marketing manager or as a director, and now I've burnt out.Now I need to do something completely different for fear that, you know, going back to a similar role or a similar industry will lead them to the same path. Sometimes that's the right thing to do. Sometimes maybe not. We don't know. Right? That's part of the discovery.How do you integrate the principle of exploration, experimentation, testing things out in the work that you do?

It's such a big part of that moment when people find themselves either trying, like getting to their quit date or actually having left. I try to bring a spirit of fun and excitement to the experimentation. One, because this is your life passing you by day after day.And if you're coming to this moment from this place of curiosity and excitement about life like that childlike joy, chances are you're going to engage with the world around you in a different way, in a positive way. A lot of people who've told me, ben, I don't want to do this type of work ever again. I want to throw it out.I was working with an anesthesiologist a couple years ago who thought the same thing. And what I had her do, which is what I have a lot of people do, is, okay, let's. You are the expert on your life.I'm not gonna negate what you're saying, but I'm gonna have you figure out if that's right for you without having to commit to a whole new career, which is, to me, a mistake. Please.If you think you need to move away from engineering or being a lawyer or doc, whatever it is, okay, let's test that out as if it were a hypothesis. Like, okay, so what are the things you're interested in? This anesthesiologist had always been interested in interior design.

Interesting.

Okay, let us create an experiment where you can see what that life is like, what that work is like, without having to get training and go back to school. And a lot of people are like, I need to go back to school. I'm like, wait, we don't know yet. We don't know yet.And she realized her good friend's daughter was an interior designer. And she flew from where she was to Houston to shadow this person for a few days.And right when she came back from the trip, we hopped on a call and she said, yeah, we can cross that off the list. I don't want to do that. And I was so proud of her.I'm like, crossing things off the list for what's next is just as important as fielding different possibilities. But in that example, it took visiting a good friend and her daughter and just following her around for a couple of days.

Yeah.

And we knew a whole path was not right for her.

I love that they use that as an example because I can imagine people might be listening to this and like, experiment on a job. Like, how exactly is that supposed to work? It's like you need to sign a contract, you actually need to commit to something.But there are so many creative ways of exposing yourselves to different options that are exactly that are playful, it's experimental, it's non committal, but it's just validating some of the assumptions that we're making or testing out some of these hypotheses that will then guide us to what the event will next step is or what the decision will be.And it's funny that you use this particularly this hypothesis word, because one of the books I really love is Designing youg Life by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett. And they talk a lot about envisioning different versions of your life.Continue with the life you have now, or if you didn't have this job, okay, what's the next, you know, version that you could create? And what's the Greenfield version of you that you can create? And just really get people to think of possibilities.And then figuring out all the people in your life, first degree, second degree, third degree, connections, who might somewhere somehow be connected to any of those possibilities and just getting in touch, having a conversation, shadowing. Tell me what it's like to run a restaurant.And then you realize, okay, I always dreamed of owning my own restaurant and realizing to your point about the interior design. Yeah. No, it's not what I thought it would be. Right. And there's so much value to taking that time to really exploring. And it is work. This is not easy.It's not easy work to do, but it's worthwhile.Have you observed patterns in the people you've worked with about what this type of exploration does for them in terms of their beliefs, their thought patterns, their relationship with work which you referred to earlier.

Definitely. So much of the help I give towards finding a next step is relationship based. I'm a true believer that we all need each other.Community I think is the answer to a lot of the ills we face today.And what I found when people walk through this process with me, they start having these conversations with former colleagues, friends and family, people who they admire, new people who they just cold outreach people that I connect them to and they start to enjoy it. They start to say this is actually fun.Then one of my former clients, call him Nat, was a principal level engineer at a major news corporation here in the States. And right before we started working together, had left that job.He was pretty unhappy about the way things went down, just feeling like he was pushed out and tried to go about things the normal way, which is apply, apply, apply. Okay, I'll network. The more like quid pro quo what can you do for me type of job searching.Got to a final round for one company and realized like I don't even want this job if they offer it to me. And what I started to offer him was okay, let's slip, let's look in the past you have a 20 plus year career in engineering. What got you into it?What has excited you when you were in college helping run that lab, what drew you in? What are the moments we can trace throughout your career that bring you excitement about the work you have done?And that's a really easy blueprint to what it is you'd want to be doing next.And as he got clear on what he wanted from the past and then looking at his future and knowing, okay, here's the boundaries, I have two kids, I want to be able to pick them up. I want to not have all these useless meetings. Having things from the past clear, things for the future clear.We could then start interacting with people from a point of clarity and here's what I want, here's what I'm looking for. And as he started having those conversations, which he's more of an introvert, he's like, I would have never done this if we hadn't talked.He started to enjoy it.And anytime now that I have someone who I think could benefit from talking to him, almost immediately he's like, yeah, send him my way, we'd love to talk. Because he's realized what I think I've built this business around, which is it's all about Relationships. It's.It's people in our life that are generous with their time, their expertise, who give us that type of love that makes these things most possible.

Yeah.

And people doubt that. And I say to them, if I came to you and I didn't know you and was asking you about your life and your work, would you tell me about it?They're like, oh, yeah, not a problem. Like, so why. Why wouldn't someone else do that for you?

Yeah. That's so interesting.And it's also something I've come to realize for myself, but also I try to pass on to others, is remember that more people than not are willing to help. I think we're always worried about how we might be perceived, or what if people say no, how does this come across?Or I feel like I now create an obligation and a debt towards someone, and then it's just reminding at the end of the day, we're all in this together. Like, we all need a little bit of help. And most people are willing to do that.And if they can't, they will tell you, or they'll maybe think of somebody else who can help. And sometimes it's that. Right. It's. Sometimes it's just finding to the person who can. And you need to create those bridges to get to that point.And so I appreciate you reinforcing the importance of community here, especially when we're really struggling, because what I find is we then struggle in isolation when we start to feel unwell. What I've observed is we just start to retreat.And I think there's a period of time where maybe that's the helpful thing, because you just need time for yourself. You probably don't have the energy or the capacity to engage in relationships, but take that time for sure.And then coming back out, remembering that the world is out there and find your circle. And over time, that circle will expand. And I think that's just really important for our audience to remember they're not alone in this.When you think about pivoting experimentation, what advice do you have in terms of what guardrails people might need to be thinking about? Right. There are. Maybe there are jobs or industries where, yes, easy to do. Go ahead and pivot.And maybe there are parts where maybe you need to think about it a second time or a third time. So any patterns you've noticed about.Yes, these are moments where it's good or these are the things that make it easy and helpful and where maybe that might not be the right solution.

I think our minds get really clouded by toxic or misaligned work environments.So it's really difficult when we're in the midst of feeling burnt out or right after to have the clarity of mind to know whether or not we want to pivot.So again, this idea of quitting, or at least like a leave of absence, like having distance from this work environment, is the thing that allows us to start to see, does a pivot make sense at all?And that's where we'll get into the deeper conversation about, okay, yeah, you've been doing this for 20 years, you're an engineer, maybe hard to do something else that isn't related and do you even want to? And we start pulling out, what is it that you've done that you actually like?And how does that resonate with the skills you have, the experience you have? Because people are going to hire you for your expertise. And if you want to start over, it has to be with this full.This full knowledge that it might take going back to school, it might take a few years, and you might be starting at entry level, which can be okay. It can be okay. It also doesn't need to be the thing you do with your career.It could be, you know, you've stopped painting and you miss it and you should get back into it if you really want to without any pressure of this thing that you care about becoming your next step.But I promise you, if you do re engage with the things you care about, that it will change the way you're thinking about this career that you're maybe thinking of leaving, because it will start to reconnect you with the things that this joy of life. And again, like so much of this is what's the weather pattern going on in your head and your heart?And when we can shift that to one where you're feeling good, the relationship you have to work is going to change as well.

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that I'm observing comes up, right? It's creating some healthy distance to the environment you're in.It's re engaging with things that bring you joy to get back that motivation and that inspiration, taking care of yourself and doing what you need to do to get healthier and feel better about yourself. And all of that creates space and clarity and safety to think about what's next.And I think those are really important ingredients as far as I've also seen for people kind of in this transition of struggling in their jobs and figuring out what's next for them. So if we were to wrap up here Ben. And you had to help somebody figure out just where to begin.Like, they're listening to this, they're in that pendulum of is this the right place for me? Do I need to go? But I don't know what's next. And I'm not feeling good about any of this, but I'm really scared. Where do they begin?

Please don't quit after hearing this. I always advise people not to make any rash decisions about that. So instead, take this step back. I have this tool, what's My Runway?That will kick off the process of getting to the reality of your situation, where you're going to be taking some time to input all that you have asset wise, what's coming out every month and actually see around how many months and years do you have if you were to get fired right now? And I think this tool, which you can find@benfoxcoaching.kit.com this free tool allows your brain to relax a little bit.And that first step shows your body that you're listening. What's so hard in these moments is it almost feels like there's nothing you can do to deal with this horrible situation you find yourself in.And I know when I tell everyone action is going to help doing things about it.Having something like this that you fill out where you can start to see, oh my God, I'd be okay for three years if I had to use everything like, got this house, I've got all these savings. Again, we're not going to use all that. But your brain can start to relax.

That's such a concrete way of just supporting people in our community who are in this decision making process. And just having things in black and white can sometimes make such a huge difference.So we'll make sure people have the link to the Runway template in our show notes. Other than your website, how else can people learn more about what you do and how you work?

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. That's the main place where I'm posting things that I'm thinking about, clients that I'm working with, some stories.So definitely you can find me on LinkedIn. And if you do end up signing up to use this tool, I'll be able to see it.I'll send you a hello if you'd like a deeper dive, 45 minute free conversation to talk about where you're at and what some of the next steps could be. Just sign up and I'll reach out to you.

Excellent.Ben, thank you for being so generous by offering the what's my Runway template and offering a free conversation for anyone who wants to explore this further. Ben, thank you for normalizing an option that sometimes feels really difficult and feels sometimes controversial and impossible.And through this conversation, I feel like if I were listening to this as somebody who was struggling, I would be walking away with some different perspectives of how I can look at my situation, knowing quitting may not be the solution, but could be the solution, and that's okay. And that there are pathways to experiment and discover different ways of thinking, feeling valuable in a professional and personal context.So thank you for highlighting all of that today and for joining us on our show.

Yeah. What a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much, Karina.

Thank you, Ben.