Get Off the Fence

Are you still sitting, unhappily, in your corporate job, thinking about getting out?  Should you find a job at another company?  Go with a startup?  Start your own business?  Does your level of fear escalate as you ask yourself this list of questions?  Finding another job can be unnerving enough if you've been where you are for a while.  But the idea of starting your own business brings on a whole different level of discomfort.

Guy Kawasaki interviewed the author of a new book, Escape from Corporate America. Pamela Skillings, the book's author, talks in the interview (and probably in the book, although I haven't read it yet) about all the options.  She says,

No one should quit abruptly without a good career transition plan. However, there are also dangers in staying too long in a job you hate. The longer you stay stuck in a rut, the harder it is to get out.

All the people I have interviewed for my book (in progress) say they wish they had left their corporate jobs sooner. That isn't to say that everyone who is in a corporation should leave. I only interviewed people who got off the fence, but there are undoubtedly large numbers of people who are happy they stayed. I think Skillings' book could help you decide on which side of the fence you belong. Certainly Kawasaki's interview of Skillings would be a good starting point.