Earlywood: Cut the Cord

Earlywood: Cut the Cord

Publisher’s note: Happy Saturday, a day when many dream about quitting their corporate job. In this week’s Earlywood, a free excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996, I talk about just that. This originally appeared in a series of blog posts in 2016. Each Earlywood entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. We hope you enjoy it.

Over the years, a lot of students, readers and friends have asked for advice on how to leave the corporate world – and avoid starvation in the process. When I get asked this question, I take a deep breath. I hate to give advice because what worked for me might not work for you.

I wrote this two-part series five years after leaving the corporate world, and it has a few little things I’ve learned that might help you if you ever dare to step to the edge and look down. Eight years later, some things have changed (we took on a small amount of debt to buy our fulfillment center, and …