This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Jenny Wooden, a 45-year-old former Google government who lives in Boulder, Colorado. She left Google in August 2024 and is now a keynote speaker, coach, and author. The next has been edited for size and readability.
It appeared preposterous for me to ever take into consideration leaving Google.
I began there in November 2006, when there have been solely round 10,000 workers, and have become an government — the director of American media relations — in 2022.
Google’s wonderful; I bleed Google colours. I cherished the influence I used to be having, the way forward for alternatives I noticed for myself, and the suggestions I used to be getting as a frontrunner. I am additionally the breadwinner for my family.
I might at all times thought I might be at Google for one more 15 years and would retire there.
I noticed I could not maintain my life anymore
The second that began the agony was after I was driving my son, who was 7 on the time, house from choir rehearsal in the dead of night, a 45-minute drive on winding roads.
Due to the whole lot on my plate on the time — my position at Google, main the Personal Your Profession program, navigating my guide alternatives, and being a spouse and mother — I used to be affected by a lot nervousness that it saved me up at evening, feeling like I used to be letting everyone down and never doing something properly.
Largely, I used to be extremely sleep-deprived.
As I used to be driving, I used to be like, Oh my gosh. Did my eyes simply flutter closed? I did not really go to sleep on the wheel, however it was a terrifying second.
Throughout my subsequent session with my executive coach, I instructed her I could not maintain this anymore. I had taken on so many issues within the identify of success. She mentioned, “Jenny, circumstances change.”
Her phrases stopped me in my tracks and opened me as much as the possibility of leaving — leaving properly and quitting thoughtfully.
Thus ensued 18 months of back-and-forth about whether or not I ought to keep or go.
I used a spreadsheet to assist me weigh the dangers
I am a left-brain thinker and strategy the world in a really analytical method, so it was arduous to really feel in my intestine that it was time to go away.
One factor that actually helped was a spreadsheet I made, weighing precise threat towards perceived threat. I broke it down into 4 parts: bodily threat, cognitive threat, emotional threat, and monetary threat.
Bodily threat included issues like not sleeping at evening, ache, and weight reduction (which I gave a 1). Cognitive threat was psychological stress, distraction, and psychological drain (a 2). Emotional threat included potential for rejection, lack of reference to family members, destructive self-talk, and concern (a 2). And the monetary threat was issues like paying my future mortgage assertion and future earnings potential (a 2).
Breaking issues down helped me get out of a catastrophizing mindset of pondering, It is a ridiculous thought, and made me suppose far more virtually about how this is perhaps potential.
I needed to change my mindset to flee the golden handcuffs
The golden handcuffs are very actual.
It wasn’t simply my wage, bonus, and fairness; it was all of that future revenue as properly. I’d log in to my Google inventory portfolio system — which tells you what you have earned and what you will earn when your stock vests — and my palms would sweat. It was actually arduous to stroll away from that quantity.
However finally, in case you’re in an government position at any Fortune 500 firm, you are in all probability making more than you need to dwell on. I assume it will depend on your way of life; I live pretty frugally. Even so, I nonetheless could not think about my revenue and web belongings not persevering with to go up and to the correct each single 12 months till I retired.
That was a mindset I needed to transfer previous.
It took my husband and me having seven conversations with our financial advisor — which ended up being extra like remedy — for me to really feel comfy and assured that I may do that.
My recommendation on quitting properly
I ended up leaving Google in August 2024. I cried after I turned in my badge and laptop and as I drove away — comfortable, unhappy, and bittersweet tears. It was 18 years of my life!
After I got here house, my husband and youngsters had written all these phrases that I might mentioned earlier than by way of my management and training work, and organized them in a coronary heart form on the window within the kitchen.
Courtesy of Jenny Wooden
The guts continues to be up, 14 months later.
Quitting Google has been an enormous change. I do not need to make it sound prefer it was simple; it was the scariest and hardest factor I’ve ever gone by way of in my skilled life.
However I might say I give up terribly properly. This is my recommendation for others.
1. Thoughts your truths and tales
A fact is a verifiable reality, whereas a story is a narrative you create to make sense across the information. We frequently inform ourselves destructive tales, and so they do not serve us properly as a result of we imagine what we predict.
To get previous my fears, I needed to separate the truths from the tales, after which rewrite these tales to be extra empowering.
For instance:
Story: I’ll lose my entire identity if I go away Google.
Reality: I will not be employed by Google.
A extra empowering story: A part of the explanation I am leaving is as a result of I need to have an enormous guide launch and presumably be a bestselling creator. That is an unbelievable new identification to undertake!
Or, story: We are going to run out of money and have to maneuver to a smaller home, away from the beautiful climbing trails which are behind our present home.
Reality: I can’t get a paycheck with the Google emblem on it each two weeks.
A extra empowering story: I’ve labored actually arduous to place myself in the most effective monetary place potential to make this a actuality.
One story I instructed myself was that my children would by no means forgive me for leaving Google as a result of they love the key sport room, the climbing wall, and the free snacks and sweet — Google’s a very cool place for a guardian to work. However I do know they’re actually pleased with what I am doing.
What issues extra to them is that now I am executed with work daily at 2:40 p.m., I drop them off and decide them up from college virtually daily, and so they’re in all probability going to start out touring to locations like Disney World and Vegas with me for keynotes now.
There isn’t any query this was the correct resolution for my household.
2. Prioritize your dynamic dozen
Earlier than I give up, I made a spreadsheet on my private laptop of individuals I needed to remain in contact with and their electronic mail addresses. I used to be additionally posting on LinkedIn frequently and constructing an viewers.
I arrange what I name the “dynamic dozen” — 12 folks you need to meet with within the subsequent 12 weeks. That is nice in case you’re making an attempt to change roles inside your organization, in case you’re in search of a brand new job, and in addition if you wish to give up. It could possibly be 12 folks in 12 weeks, or 30 folks in 30 days.
Mine was in all probability nearer to round 60 folks in 60 days, as a result of I needed to leverage all the relationships I had: individuals who may need to deliver me as a keynote speaker sooner or later, or individuals who may need to purchase 100 bulk copies of my guide two years from then.
Once you go away an organization, your network always remains, so double down on that earlier than you peace out. Have sincere, intentional conversations, put time on somebody’s calendar, and attain out to folks, even when it has been years because you had a working relationship.
I needed to push previous the concern that nobody at Google would need to work with me as soon as I used to be on the skin, that I might be irrelevant. My work is so much about find out how to thrive in a company setting, so I questioned, If I am not in a single, will any of my content material nonetheless be legitimate?
Now, my primary shopper is Google. The overwhelming majority of my teaching purchasers are Google workers, and an enormous chunk of my talking income is from Google talking engagements or consulting.
3. Transfer, then map
As soon as, I used to be hiking in Montana with two buddies, and the path diverged into two paths. I am at all times trying to optimize, so I began peppering the park ranger with all of those questions: “What’s the good path? Which one will probably be extra cardio? Which one is a lake view and which is a mountain view? Which path is muddy?”
And from 50 toes forward, my pal yelled, “Jenny, it is all stunning! Simply begin strolling!”
I am at all times making an attempt to map out the whole lot completely — how a lot revenue I might make, how rapidly I may construct a enterprise, what I might be if not a Googler.
You may’t try this. Concern provides friction, which slows you down with out really minimizing threat.
Making an attempt to map each little potential element additionally takes the enjoyment out of the method. Motion makes progress; pondering supplies readability. Once you transfer after which map —or at the least transfer and map in tandem — you are going to be arrange for a lot extra success.
When you give up your job for an unconventional path and need to share your story, please attain out to this reporter at janezhang@businessinsider.com.