I’m Thinking About Quitting My Job: Finding My Way Home

My first book was written in second grade, Bonnie and Mimi Meet Teddy. I had just learned to type on a beige, boxy 1980s Apple Macintosh in the Empire Gardens Science Magnet School computer lab and ended up entered in a Young Author’s contest. Didn’t win, as you might imagine, with a book about two besties and a teddy bear. Though in 5th grade (or was it 4th?), I redeemed myself by having an essay I wrote about saving trees and something about oxygen being quoted in a local paper (or the school paper, which, same thing when you’re in 5th grade).

Also in second grade (it was poppin that year), I attended my first dance. The recreation center down the street hosted dances for 4th and 5th-graders in the neighborhood. Because my sister and brother both worked at the center, my parents let me go. 

At some point in that glorious night, I found myself in a dance contest with the “Skip-ing” Jake Valdez. Like me, Jake had an older brother working at the center. His parents gave him the same green light, and there we were, holding it down for second grade. 

My guy did The Skip the entire time our battle song played.

Meanwhile, I — being the doing-the-most dancer I was back then, not caring about what anyone thought, or your feelings after me and my moves wrecked you — danced circles around him. The Roger Rabbit. The Kid N Play. The Cabbage Patch. The Snake. Crisscrossing slides, New Edition spins, and whatever else my 7-year-old body decided. I was a dancing machine, and everybody knew it. The contest was never fair. 

Just not in the way you might think. 

You see, Jake, as limited as he was, was cute. I, on the other hand, was not. 

That night, I got my first lesson in how the real world works. And Jake won.  

Things I knew for sure.

There are three things I knew for sure: I loved to dance. I loved to write. I was above average at both. How I ended up in Silicon Valley Tech — cybersecurity, specifically —  still makes me chuckle, and think“Really, God? Really?” 

I had my run as a dancer for sure: dance teams, cheerleading squads, music videos, backup dancing… your girl lived a full dance career and hit every possible dance height by the time I reached my mid-twenties. But ever since first watching Strictly Ballroom at a sleepover in elementary school, I’ve really wanted to become a competitive ballroom dancer. Latin dances. Still do.

As for writing, can’t say I got my big break. I’m not a multi-award-winning New York Times Bestselling author. Yet. Sure, I rewrote friends’ resumes, curated colleagues’ bios, submitted countless A+, 90%-and-above essays, and final projects through my entire academic career. It came easily. 

Then email came along, and, oh, shizzle. It was on. I treated every message like an art display: rereading, rewording, re-editing until I’d crafted the perfect “I am most humbly obliged by the distinguished merit of your proposition…”, unnecessarily formal language most teenagers weren’t anywhere near in that era. But this chick right here? Designing templates, narratives, and pitch decks was like chips and salsa — my favorite dopamine hit.

And now, thankfully, there’s my blog. Thing is, I have so much more to say than a tagline or a website can hold.

Should someone like me be starting a business?

So, why would an artist and wordsmith like me start a business? Forget for a moment the business value prop. I still stand firm in what it represents and why it’s necessary for today’s society. But should someone like me really be starting a business? Is this what I really want? And more specifically, does it bring me peace? When I work on it, when I’m thinking about the impact it can have, do I feel, not just excitement, but peace? 

These were the questions I pondered one unseasonably hot morning during my Jesus time, crying out to God (and to my pastor’s AI app) as I realized the inconvenient truth. I was crying because I was afraid that building a business wasn’t for me. “It was never anything I aspired to” — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that to someone.

Yes, I have gifts. Real ones. I know I do. I have a message that matters. I know that too. I built something beautiful that reflects my values, my voice, and the real challenges professionals face in today’s workplace. My website is gorgeous. My messaging convicts me. My purpose, mission, vision – I stand by all of it and am darn proud. But pride in what I’ve built and peace about the building itself are two different animals.  

You don’t have a business problem.

Another question that came up that morning: When I think about writing novels, sitting down with a blank page, building stories that come from my lived experience and my soul, do I feel it’s just as hard? Or do I feel at home? 

Ugh, fam, that one did it. Crying turned to sobbing — that mouth-agape, no sound coming out, bent over, gripping your stomach, depths of your soul sobbing. Because I knew the truth. It wasn’t even deep down. It was right there seething out of the surface:

I don’t have a business problem. I have a belief problem that’s wearing a business mask.

You see, writing, dancing, and storytelling energize me. They make me feel alive. Those are home. Building a business is hard, isolating, lonely, and something I’ve never done before. That’s a climb. Climbs aren’t always wrong. But a climb toward something I’m not convinced about (as in, not convinced that it brings me peace or feels quite like home)? It’s exhausting in a way no amount of motivation or prayer can fix. 

What do you actually want to build?

The last question I had to sit with: When I strip away the financial pressure of Silicon Valley living, when I remove the fear of looking foolish, when I take away the “what if I’m wasting time” — what do I actually want to build with my one life? (Waaaah! I could not keep it together, ya’ll.)

Because Erin — the woman who loves words and stories and has been dancing since childhood, the woman who has lived experience and corporate wisdom to share — what does she genuinely want to do? Not what should she want. Not what sounds responsible or impressive. Or what everyone compliments her on when they find out she started her own business. But what calls to her?

That answer matters more right now than any word from God about my business, which I had to finally stop asking for and instead examine why I kept asking.

It’s a heartbreaking thing to ponder. To have to face. To have to get brutally honest about and own up to. Especially now. After dedicating 2 whole social media accounts, 153 posts, one LinkedIn page, dozens of videos, and ideas saved in drafts, and thousands of dollars in systems, platforms, contractors, education, and taxes (omg the taxes). All of it done with confidence. Gusto. Pride. Publicly. Because that’s what you’re supposed to portray as a new “Silicon Valley Founder”. 

Talk about a tail between the legs moment. Anyone wanna split this slice of humble pie with me? Might be too full to eat it, says my ego. 

“When Calls The Heart” 

I’m going to keep it all the way real, fam, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m scheduled for a business trip to Nashville, TN, next month, which is already paid for. I’ve renewed all my company subscriptions for the year. I also don’t know the first thing about publishing a book. Or who would accept an over-40 ballroom dancing apprentice to train for competition life. I mean, do you see all that’s at stake here? I’m literally talking about starting all over. AGAIN! Not because my business failed, I’m barely just getting it off the ground. But because, like the Hallmark show When Calls the Heart — when your heart calls, eventually you have to pick up.

What if you just went for it?

What a risk, publishing an article like this while I’m pushing out the media kit I spent weeks building, posting content promoting my work, building lead generators, landing pages, and nurture sequences I still pray will be successful — and sharing soon, in fact. Add my new entry-level product, a killer assessment I built that I’m about to start testing platforms to host. The nerve of me, right?

But I can’t help that every time I pick up a novel — smell and touch the pages, let the crinkle of a plastic cover play with my senses, discover writing so staggeringly innovative that I’m compelled to reach out to the author and ask where she learned to write like that — reading the story is barely the beginning. It’s a whole experience: mental notes of cleverly written word combos I play over and over, a pioneering pace I have mad respect for, or every once in a while, a style that reminds me of my own novel. The one that’s been in the works since 2015. 2015, ya’ll. Like, what the actual fudge?!

I can’t help but wonder — what if? What if you just went for it, Erin? Chased your real dreams, not a manufactured version. Said to hell with what everyone might think, and danced your butt off like you did in second grade. No shame. No guilt. Just pure, unadulterated F-its at zero-Fs speed. (A little-known fact about me: my thoughts come doused in censored — okay, and uncensored — F-bombs on the regular.)

Book deals. Walking past my fifth novel on a bookshelf. Friends calling just to say “Duuuude, chapter 16… I can’t even…” Kicking butt in my first Pro-Am ballroom competition and winning the whole dang thing.

Just saying… what if?

Now you know

…and now you know a little more about what solo-preneur life actually be like.

I looked at the clock. 8:50am.

Time for my workout, then eat and start my work day. Because that whole thing? Was just a thought I had. Start to finish, before 9am. That’s what this ride feels like for me, like an ill-timed April Fools’ joke: something pops up on my radar, I freak out for a few minutes (or longer, though I’m getting better), and then I get back to work. Just another day in the life.

No, I won’t be dismantling the business I’ve spent the last year-and-change building — the one I genuinely believe belongs in this world. This was just me handing you an actual, unedited example of what “I doubt myself sometimes” looks like up close. In real time. Mid-Jesus-time. Before the amen.

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Want to WORK WITH ME? Now might be your only chance. I may follow a dream — or two — and then it’ll be too late. I’ll be in Spain, winning a world championship for a rumba that makes history. Or on a book tour across Africa, promoting my newest, everyone’s-raving-about-it novel, drawing inspiration from my rapidly growing fan club.

So, you know, act fast.

Or say what’s up, start a convo, ask a question HERE. 

😉