Money or Freedom? The Two 6-Figure Offers That Almost ENDED My Career Break

Two weeks ago, I seriously questioned ending my career break.

In this episode, I’m walking you through what actually happened when I was invited to explore two sales roles I would’ve jumped at a year ago.

In This Episode:

• Why being wanted and “in demand” messed with my head more than I expected
• The bargaining spiral and pros/cons list I went through
• Where I got starry-eyed about saying “yes”, and what it would have meant for this season of my life
• The uncomfortable truth this choice surfaced about my values

Let's Connect:

Follow me on Instagram: @alisonkinsey or send me an email: alison@alisonkinsey.com. 

Connect with Alison on LinkedIn.

I also help entrepreneurs and thought leaders launch and grow their podcasts through my boutique podcast editing agency, Podcasting for Creatives. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I feel like the universe was testing me in a way. Like, Allison, are you sure you want to bet on yourself? Being good at something doesn't mean you have to do it. I am walking into the complete unknown. Hi, friend. Ever since I got laid off, I had two moments recently where I seriously questioned ending my career break, just throwing in the towel. And one of those moments happened just a couple weeks ago. It's not because I was bored or sick of having all this time off, but it was because two opportunities showed up for me completely out of the blue that I was not expecting. And both of those opportunities would absolutely give certain areas of my life almost instant relief. So I want to walk you through this juicy story, everything that happened, because there were very real stakes on both sides of the decision that I ultimately made. So to quickly ground us for a second, I got laid off almost six months ago. Episode one goes into all the nitty-gritty details if you haven't heard it yet. I was an account executive at a tech company. I made six figures a year selling software. And since my layoff, I have strategically and intentionally applied to zero full-time jobs, not a single one. Here's what happened next. I was invited to explore two different sales roles. This wasn't like a casual random recruiter message on LinkedIn. I got real messages in my inbox, in my text messages from the founders and the people with real decision-making power at these companies. So completely legit. Objectively, I felt like both of these roles were amazing on paper. They would bring me right back into six-figure salary territory. I mean, without saying too much, they were exciting opportunities, cool founders, great benefits. It really was amazing on paper. And my reaction to all of this, you know, getting these offers, getting these messages was that I was intrigued. I was curious. I'm in a very vulnerable season here, you know. In that moment, there was initially a feeling of, oh my gosh, this is so validating. I'm in demand. I'm wanted. Because the job market sucks. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It's absolutely awful. And I've seen so many LinkedIn posts of people applying for hundreds of jobs and maybe getting a 1% response rate. So it's really rough out there. I've seen the depressing posts. It just messed with my ego in the best and worst way. Like how freaking awesome that I could bypass the insanity of the job market and potentially just get scooped up quickly into another role and not have to deal with the rigmarole of sending my resume out a hundred times. I was kind of in a spiral, like a major decision-making spiral, because the temptation was there. It felt like the carrot was being dangled right in front of me. All I had to do was say yes. It wouldn't be that hard. I could meet with these companies and still I'd have right of refusal to say no if they gave me the job offer. I could still back away and not move forward. I mean, what's the harm in having a conversation? I took the time to really think about it though, because on the one side, there's a lot of layers to this. I've proven to myself that I'm good at sales. But here's what I realized: being good at something doesn't mean you have to do it or that I should pursue sales again because I was good at it before. I've also been thinking a lot about my values and what lights me up deep down. Would either of these roles align with what I'm craving in this current season? I took this career break just in general, number one, so I could have creative capacity again and to feel this feeling of being completely untethered and free without feeling like a freaking slave to my calendar. Right now in my day-to-day life, I have breathing room for play, for creativity, to go to painting classes and coffee dates and entrepreneur meetups. And I haven't had that type of freedom in a long, long time. And if I'm being honest, I'm not ready for this chapter to end. This is not it. The time is not up for me. I want to give myself the rest of this year to really see this career break through. While I was in decision-making mode, though, I started bargaining with myself. I started really putting myself in the mindset of having any one of those jobs. Like if I took any of those jobs, if I got job offers at the end of it, I told myself, I'm still going to produce this podcast. No way am I letting this project end. And I felt confident that I could still do it. I'm in a good flow right now. It takes up, you know, a few hours a week to come up with the topics and write the show notes and do the recordings. But I definitely wouldn't have time to sustain anything else creatively. So forget YouTube and short form video and all the other things I want to do next. The example that I think about is I just picture my life and I see a row of dominoes all lined up in a row. When I launched this podcast, that triggered the first domino to fall over. And it's going to spark more dominoes falling over. I feel like the dominoes are in slow motion right now, like they're gearing up, like the next domino is getting ready to be knocked over. But that hasn't happened yet. The momentum is building, though. I'm doing the thing. I'm doing the thing. And it feels really good. I don't want to put a stop to it. Something that's interesting though is when I was thinking about these roles, I started getting stars in my eyes thinking about the money component. And it started to feel like the money was maybe the only thing that was really, really exciting me. If I went back into the nine-to-five world, I would have financial freedom to travel again, to take road trips, to go on all these amazing trips and experiences. I also wouldn't have to pay over $700 a month for health insurance anymore. And I could start investing again in my 401 and my brokerage accounts. So all of that sounds so exciting. I mean, I take the job, I get instant relief for those pain points. Remember the dreamy van that I talked about falling in love with? Yeah, I could swing the monthly payments. I could get back on the road, I could actually sign a lease and make a big down payment for something. That feels really exciting. But with all of that upside comes the real realities of working in sales. And when I take myself back to being in the day-to-day of it again, even though I would be at a different company, the nature of sales, it's the same. No matter what, I would be back in a high stress, performance-based position. I'd be back to pouring all of my extroverted energy into that day's sales calls, getting contracts signed. I'd be back to having a quota and trying to hit my numbers. Not that any of this is horrible, but it's a very, very real trade-off. There's this phrase that I hear all the time. I'm sure you've heard it too, where people say, choose your hard. So what is my hard gonna be? Because both of these situations are not perfect. Both have their difficulties and their challenges. I had to ask myself, am I going to chase money right now? Or am I going to protect my freedom and go all in on my creative journey? At this moment in time, I don't have both money and freedom. Someday I will. And this may seem a bit woo, but I feel like the universe was testing me in a way. Like, Allison, are you sure you want to bet on yourself? Because you don't have to. You can take this amazing paycheck over here and just call it quits. And in the end, I decided to choose me. I said no. I let both of these companies know that I needed to honor the chapter that I'm in and remain on my sabbatical. It's a weird, weird feeling because I am walking into the complete unknown. I said no without any kind of backup plan. And I still am asking myself, what if choosing myself doesn't work in the long run? That is a very real threat, I think about. So I was nervous saying no. I did feel that feeling of, ugh, like I hope this is the right thing, like I hope I'm making the right choice. But at the same time, I feel relief saying no. My severance that I split into 12 equal amounts so that I could do this for a year, it runs out in six months. That's a very real looming deadline ahead of me. And I don't have a shiny, newfangled business idea that I'm getting ready to launch. I've been asked, what's next for you? What's next for you? I don't know the answers yet. And I guess that pressure is hitting me a bit. I have a podcast and I don't ever want to put pressure on this show to make money. But now that I have the podcast, what's next? What's going to be the next thing for me? So that's where I'm at. If you can relate or if you have any thoughts about this experience, feel free to email me. My inbox is open at Allison at AllisonKinsey.com or even send me a DM on Instagram at AllisonKinsey. I just wanted to give you the real reel of what's going on week over week. And next week, I want to open up and share about what my first 30 days of podcasting actually looked like. I'm gonna spill my download numbers, why I chose a podcast over other forms of media, and all the things. So stick with me, and I'll see you then. Bye.