Burnout. It's a word that had meaning and weight before the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, including myself, describing burnout during and after (after just being the long tail of "during" that may never end) the pandemic is difficult. How many days can you spend on multi-hour Zoom calls, only to be capped off with a colleague sharing someone close to them passed away from COVID-19 before you break? What words accurately describe feeling so drained of mental and emotional energy that every morning starts with a pep talk to yourself and ends with asking how can you do it all again tomorrow? Wading through mud. Weight on my shoulders. Pick your analogy--I was burned out.
Taking a professional break was the only option. When I left Tableau (now a Salesforce company) in 2021, I gave up a 10 week sabbatical. During the early part of 2021, after having to cancel vacations, bachelor party, wedding and two honeymoons, having that sabbatical to look forward to kept me motivated. Giving it up was hard, but moving to Heap was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. However, after another year of grinding through the day, I knew I had to take a break and a professional sabbatical was my only option.
So I did what all good marketers do: I made a plan. I worked with a career coach. I identified my last day working--just hitting my one year anniversary at Heap, because gotta get that equity. I gave my leadership three months notice. And the day I shared that news, I felt the iceberg of worry, doubt, pain, tension and every other emotion I had built up for three years just melt away. I thought my plan was sound. I would leave in August, take at least two months to do anything and everything that did not involve my career, and then at the end of 2022, research what I wanted to do next. As the saying goes from Mike Tyson, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
Recounting every detail of what I did in September and October of 2022 isn't why you're reading this, so I'll spare the details. Just know my wife and I finally had our Italian honeymoon after postponing for two years and rescheduling twice. And of course I watched a lot of Netflix.
Going into November it was always my plan to revisit my professional life. Did I still enjoy marketing? Were there other functions or industries that I wanted to pivot into? Having the time and space to dissect and linger on these questions was pivotal. As important as the rest-and-recuperation were during the sabbatical, this step was just as critical. Again, I won't go into the full details of my day-to-day during that time. After several weeks though, I landed on a path forward for my career. If you couldn't guess, marketing maintained its importance in my life. One detail I will share are the two quotes that helped guide me to the door of the next stage in my professional life:
"It's not a long term plan. It's a long term direction." - Jack Trout & Al Reis
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” - Seneca the Younger
Up to this point, my sabbatical had gone exactly to plan. However, if you kept track of the dates and have a memory just above a goldfish, you'll remember that November 2022 is when the world of tech had the biggest reality check since 2001.
During the summer of 2022, while I was planning my sabbatical, tech began layoffs that a generation of workers had never seen before--including myself. June saw 110,000 employees laid off, including Coinbase, Netflix and Tesla. Next month in July came the Twitter, TikTok and Vimeo layoffs. Talking to peers and friends, we knew headwinds were coming, but we brushed them off as being minor. It was tech. Our jobs and skills were always in demand.
Then came November, 2022. Meta: 59,000 employees let go (and just the first round of layoffs). Amazon: 10,000 employees and the first of at least three large scale layoffs. And the layoffs kept rolling into the new year. Salesforce joined with three separate rounds. Google. Microsoft. And hundreds more behind them. Not only were companies laying off employees, but even profitable companies paused or moved their 2023 hiring plans. My worst fears of taking more than a few months to find a job morphed into something I had never actually thought about: what if nobody is hiring? What had started as an optimistic outlook to join companies with missions and products that motivated me was turning into finding anyone who would hire me. Optimism was starting to creep into panic and join all my old friends: doubt, frustration, worry and pain.
Fast forward three months and it's the beginning of April, 2023. Though every month since November has had their own unique ups-and-downs, it is easy to summarize the last four months. A lot of companies are still hiring and there are way more candidates applying and interviewing for those roles. I've yet to find a full time role, which is still the primary goal. However, I've not wasted this time either. I've reconnected with friends and peers going back to college years. I started a company. I made a website. I'm learning what it's like to be a contractor and consultant. I have the time to be hands on with all the new technology coming out--hello AI. And while I still have flexibility in my schedule, I'm prioritizing my emotional, mental and physical health. Which brings me to the point of this blog post.
I have never regretted taking my sabbatical. When considering the risks and rewards last year, I asked myself, "What would future James in 5, 10 or 20 years think if I did not take this break?" The answer was always regret. The ending of my sabbatical is not what I planned and that's given me the opportunity to prove to myself that I can adapt. My sabbatical evolved from an ideal scenario that was a daydream in disguise to one set in the real world. I was able to unplug, rest and recharge. Like any vacation though, that first day and first week back are never easy and so it seems is my return to full time work. That is the real world though and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Keep finding the opportunity in your obstacles.
James
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