I used to dream of something going wrong that would force me to "live the dream", but now I'm living it and the pressure is on.
A few years ago I just worked for a boss. I just had a job. I flew around the country and occasionally overseas to sell expensive enterprise software to massive corporations. I had 5 people that worked directly for me and a boss above me. It was great, and I loved a lot of things about it, but I constantly dreamed of breaking free. I would be riding my motorcycle home from my office, and think to myself, What if I got in a terrible accident and got paralyzed?
I reasoned that then I would have to quit my job and be "forced" to work on writing and marketing my book. Plus, I'd have the added benefit of people feeling bad for me, which would give my book a nice PR boost. I imagined the newspaper article about the guy who got in the motorcycle accident who was fighting for his family and pressing forward on his book despite circumstances stacked against him. Sounds good doesn't it?
Well, then my company sold, and I earned a nice bonus equivalent to about one year's salary. Not a huge cushion, not the big IPO payout you hear about, but it was enough to open the door for an opportunity. I quit my job so that I could "live the dream" and focus on my book full time.
Wahoo! Freedom! Oh, snap.... Now what do I do?
The fact is that I knew exactly what to do. I'd been working on my book for 5 years, and I had a very complete marketing plan and long lists of ToDos. But there was soooo much to do that it was overwhelming, and I didn't have a boss to prioritize it for me or even a peer with whom I could share challenges and opportunities. It was all me. Turns out there's a lot of responsibility in living the dream (which makes me think about all the "Freedom Ain't Free" bumper stickers, but that's another topic....). The good news was that I didn't have to get paralyzed to "live the dream", but the reality news was, there was a lot of hard work ahead!