I Quit a Six-Figure Job to Focus on Writing

Lara Henneman
5 min readJul 12, 2021

Childhood me is proud. Adult me is excited and nervous.

I quit a six-figure job last week to focus on writing. To write a book. To give life to an idea that has been banging around in my head for months now. Are you considering a similar leap and wondering what it feels like? Well, it’s exciting and refreshing, with a heady brew of mixed feelings and trepidation. I’m gulping it all down these days.

If you’re thinking about doing something similar, you’re not alone. People are quitting their jobs left and right, to switch careers and pursue passion projects. Or to switch to a better role with more impact (or more money). The name of the game is change.

The New York Times called it the YOLO economy:

Something strange is happening to the exhausted, type-A millennial workers of America. After a year spent hunched over their MacBooks, enduring back-to-back Zooms in between sourdough loaves and Peloton rides, they are flipping the carefully arranged chessboards of their lives and deciding to risk it all.

This is me. This is me walking away from a stable, cushy job in ed-tech where I could wait out the next few years of working-while-parenting like a cozy cave protected from the elements. Instead I’m jumping out of the cave and free-climbing down a rock wall.

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Lara Henneman

Telling stories 🖋️ Writing🖍️ Parenting 🖊️ Travel 🖋️ Social Justice