Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want

PROLOGUE

Speech to the World Domination Summit (WDS)

in Portland, Oregon, Sunday, July 7, 2013,

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

How many of you listen to public radio? How many of you listen to Marketplace? (I have tote bags for all of you backstage.) How many of you are fans of This American Life? OK, good. Well, I’m going to steal liberally today from how they construct their show each week. Of course, it also means I’m stealing liberally from every playwright…ever. My life: in three acts. Here we go.

Act 1. I Always Knew What I Wanted to Do—

or Pretty Close to That

So here’s the one reaction I remember most from the day Marketplace announced I was leaving. It was the middle of August 2012. The press release went out on a Friday, and within minutes my inbox had flooded, the phone messages had piled up, and my Facebook page had lit up…and this is the one little slice of communication I remember most. Six words:

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!?

Here it is again in case you didn’t get that:

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!?

Six little words. About thirty characters. And I know that because it was a tweet. From an old high school friend. A wordsmith, clearly! No, really—he’s one of the smartest people I know—and a better writer than I’ll ever be. And no one was more succinct. And no one was more incisive:

What. The Hell. Are you doing.

I’m here to try to explain what the hell I was doing. Leaving a dream job. My own national radio show. A place I’d wanted to work from the moment I left college. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Marketplace is a trio of hugely respected programs with a combined audience of more than nine million people.

It covers business and economics. The show’s been around since about 1990, and it has an incredibly loyal following—as I said, some nine million people listen to it each week.

This was a perch from which I interviewed politicians, authors, and celebrities. A job that allowed me to actually help hundreds of thousands of people with a difficult issue: money. A microphone through which I was allowed to say almost anything—short of an FCC violation. A coveted spot in the world of national news media. A modest measure of celebrity within the small niche that is public broadcasting. A very nice salary. The respect of strangers and of my peers. Seriously proud parents.

And I walked away.

What. The Hell. Are you doing.

I am what you might call an accidental journalist. I had every intention, actually, of being a concert pianist. Started when I was five, and I spent my early high school years thinking about whether I wanted to go to Oberlin or Juilliard. Then in my junior year, my English teacher said, You know what? You should write for the school newspaper.

And that’s how I fell in love with the news.

I went to journalism school in Chicago. Did internships at newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations. My first job out of college in 1990 was with Oregon Public Broadcasting—just up the road here in Portland. And the very first national story I ever sold was to Marketplace. A story about the first-ever Niketown. And right about then, I decided I wanted to work there someday. Might take me twenty to thirty years to get there, but I’d try.

It took eleven years. Marketplace called in mid-2001 and asked me to come host a show. Of course, I said yes.

The show was the Marketplace Morning Report—a series consisting of seven newscasts each hour starting at 2:50 a.m. Pacific time. Kai Ryssdal and I shared those duties for several years. He went on to host Marketplace—and he still does. In 2006 I became the host of Marketplace Money, our weekend personal finance program.

Now that you know I was in personal finance, let me quickly get this out of the way:

Don’t spend more than you earn.

Contribute to your 401(k) at least to the match.

Don’t carry a balance on your credit card.

Save for retirement before you save for the kids’ college.

Don’t listen to the clowns on CNBC.

And, mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys unless they can find a good health plan!

Follow those and you’ll be rich.

OK.

So I had this amazing job, right? Every week we produced this show where we took calls from people who had questions about money. We ran stories about everything from figuring out the cost of personal safety—my producer sent me to a gun range—to figuring out how to buy wine—my producer sent me to a wine store for that one, God bless his soul. I traveled the country to write about money for the New York Times. I took my microphone anywhere and everywhere that would have me. I got to visit places and people that few other people do.

I had fans. People who would recognize me in elevators just by my voice. Perfect strangers who thought I was awesome and had the coolest job in the world. Who wouldn’t love that?!

And after eleven years of that, eleven years at Marketplace, I walked away.

What. The Hell. Are you doing.

Here’s where I’m supposed to tell you that the reason I left is because I was restless. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to pursue another dream or passion. I wanted to see what else the world had to offer. I was happy and fulfilled and ready for a new challenge, right?

Well, part of that is true. I was restless. I wanted to do something different. But I never wanted to leave Marketplace.

Now, given that this is a public forum, I won’t tell stories about my departure. I’ll save that for my memoirs.

What I will say is that I had been unhappy for a while. I was tired of the subject I had been covering week in and week out. There are about six stories in personal finance, and I had told them over and over and over again. I had gotten to the point where I wanted to reach through the radio, take listeners by the shoulders, and say, Don’t you get it? Don’t spend more than you save! That’s it! I told you this last week! And the week before that! Do I really I have to tell you again this week? (I didn’t do that, of course, because…physics.)

But in the end I left for a very personal reason. An unhappy one that culminated in an afternoon of heavy tears, after which I told my husband, I’m sorry, but I’m done. I have to leave. I have to jump without a net. He said, OK—we’ll make it work.

One of the questions it was suggested I try to answer today is, How do you know when it’s time to go? How do you know when to leap without a net?

And the answer in my case is that it’s time to leave when you have too much self-respect to stay.

That, and when you’re so stressed out you start losing your hair. True story. Pay attention if that happens.

Now please understand that I do not regret one second of my time at Marketplace. And maybe it was just time to go anyway. Eleven years is a good long while to be in one place. And I truly loved that place. I was meant to be there. And it helped me become the journalist—and the person—I am today.

But what you can probably gather now is that when I left, it wasn’t for another dream. It wasn’t something I had expected to do or that I had planned for months or years. I left a sure thing for the vast unknown. And it was easily the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.

People kept saying, "Oh, Tess, this is so exciting for you! You can do anything! You’re so brave! You’re doing what so many people would love to do! And by the way, you are famous, and people will walk through fire to work with you! Hey, you should give a speech about this to three thousand people in Portland!"

Yes! Fantastic! I am brave and awesome! I will go on to even bigger and better things!

Either that—or I’m the most insane fountain of idiocy on the planet.

What. The Hell. Are you doing.

Act 2. Whatdya Wanna Do Now, Punk?

What’s amazing about a leap of faith is how everyone around you is so sure it’s going to work out—when deep down you are so sure it won’t. I think maybe they don’t know what else to say. I mean, what, they’re going to hear you’re leaving your high-profile national broadcasting job with an economy barely in recovery from the worst recession in decades, and they’re going to say, Oh, no, don’t do it. It will never work out, and hey, good luck with that though!

No, of course not. What they will repeat over and over is how you’re chasing the dream of every worker bee who’s ever lived. And we know that’s the case for most people, right? In fact, just recently Gallup released the results of its most recent employee engagement survey, reporting that out of the 100 million Americans with full-time jobs, 70 percent—repeat, 70 percent—are disengaged. The survey mentions how these disengaged people cost companies money as they roam the halls spreading discontent.

So, yeah. At least I quit instead of roaming the halls spreading discontent. Yay me!

I had a big party the Saturday after my final day in the newsroom. Friends made speeches about how proud they were of me and how excited they were to see what I would be doing next—and all I could think was, What the hell am I going to do next?

Less than two weeks later, I had an answer. Guy Raz announced he was leaving as the host of NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered. If you’re not familiar with the show, that’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. Holy cow, this is what I’m going to do next! This was meant to be! But wait. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Send in your résumé and contact a couple of the top leaders at NPR to let them know you’re interested. Chill out because you’re probably not going to get it.

But, jeez, the timing! Oh, and by the way, they’re moving the show from DC to LA, where I live. It was meant to be!

We’ll get back to Weekend All Things Considered in a bit—I’m going to give you a taste of just how long public radio takes to make hiring decisions.

Meanwhile all of these people were saying how great it was that I had given up my dream job for…a dream. But here’s the thing. When you have your dream job, or something really, really close to it, you don’t spend a lot of timing dreaming about what else you might want to do with your life. Why would you?

What everybody wanted to know was this: What was I going to do next? And I had the lamest answer of them all: I don’t know.

The follow-up question was even worse: Well, what did I want to do?

I wanted to go home and curl up with my cats.

"No, no, Tess. Go read What Color Is Your Parachute? Watch some TED talks about finding your passion. Go take a class that you’ve always wanted to take."

Great advice. But inside my head, I was paralyzed. Getting your brain to really, really open up to all the possibilities is so much harder than I ever imagined.

I know a lot of you here are entrepreneurs so maybe you were good at seeing possibilities—it wasn’t a struggle for you. Starting a business is, of course, a struggle, but maybe your brain was quick to absorb the idea of trying something completely new.

Not mine. I did the same thing for a long time. And I got pretty close to the top of my field when I was thirty-two years old. So this question—for me—was a doozy.

But here’s the thing: I think it’s a doozy for a lot of us. In fact, I started to turn it around on my friends. And a lot of them didn’t have an answer. So let me ask you:

***Into audience***

(Asking audience members: What do you do? Do you like it? If you could quit today, what would you want to do?)

***Back on stage***

As the months went by, I kept trying to figure out an answer to this question because people kept asking it. And while I thought about it, I kept doing what I was good at. As a freelancer, I hosted a show called America Abroad, which was great because when I was doing interviews about terrorists in northern Mali, nobody was asking me about allocating their 401(k)s. I hosted several shows at the public radio stations in Los Angeles, I did some freelance features for a few websites and broadcast outlets, and I wrote a long piece for the New York Times.

In February, NPR called me for a preliminary phone interview for that Weekend All Things Considered job. By then I had heard the job would be going to an internal candidate, so I didn’t put much stock in the idea that I might get that job. You know—the one I was made for.

Meanwhile I was talking with people about producing podcasts, maybe going on a speaking tour with a friend of mine who’s a former financial adviser. Another friend of mine and I came up with this idea for a reality TV show, and we actually got a meeting at a big agency in Hollywood: the Creative Artists Agency!

I really loved all these experiences and thinking about all these new things I could do with my life. They were exciting and different—and proof that there was life beyond public radio, proof that I had value beyond public radio.

Maybe I should do something totally different. Just go try something new.

Then in April, NPR called and wanted to know if I’d like to do an in-person interview for the Weekend All Things Considered job. Are you kidding me? Yeah. A couple of producers flew out from DC to LA to interview me, and I nailed it. You know how you just know when something important has gone well? Yeah, that’s what I felt like when I left. But I was also still hearing—and you all know that reporters are just glorified gossips, right?—about a couple of other candidates who were shoe-ins. So the producers went back to DC, and I went back to freelancing and guest hosting shows.

But in the back of my head, I started to think, Well, maybe this could really happen. Is it really possible that I could be the next host of Weekend All Things Considered? And I can tell you that when that possibility starts invading your consciousness, good luck trying to think beyond it.

So this notion that, hey, I’ll just go do something different, find another passion, that went away pretty quickly. Which was not wise—hope is a dangerous thing sometimes, but it’s also a fun thing to have when you’ve got one eye on the future and one on the past, and you think they might just come together.

A week went by. Then two. Then three. And I’m thinking, OK, it’s over.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what the last eight months or so were like. Something really cool would happen, and then, crickets.

Hosting America Abroad to great success: I AM AWESOME. I AM TALENTED. PEOPLE LOVE ME!

Next three weeks: WHAT HAVE I DONE? I WILL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER JOB AGAIN!

Hosting a show in LA for a week to great success: I AM AWESOME. I AM TALENTED. PEOPLE LOVE ME!

Next two weeks: WHAT HAVE I DONE? I WILL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER JOB AGAIN!

Big story in the New York Times—made the top ten most e-mailed list: I AM AWESOME. I AM TALENTED. PEOPLE LOVE ME!

Next day: WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Eight months on this roller coaster. Stop the world, I want to get off!

Then NPR asked if I’d like to come to DC and audition for Weekend All Things Considered. As in, Would I do the show? For an entire weekend. In Washington. One of 4 finalists—out of 160 candidates. Why, yes, I think that would be fine, thank you.

So about a month later, I spent a week at NPR’s gleaming new headquarters.

And I had the Time. Of. My. Life.

Yes, being on Marketplace was a big deal—it’s a huge show. But this was bigger. I did an interview with John Mellencamp, Stephen King, and T Bone Burnett together. Had one of the first on-air interviews with the reporter who broke the Snowden NSA spying story. Did this great piece about the National Aquarium in Baltimore. When I walked out of the studio on that Sunday, the staff stood and applauded me.

I could not have had more fun if I was bathing in a tub of kittens. This was what I was meant to do. This was why I had left a sure thing for the unknown. This was why I’d had such a tough time figuring out what else I wanted to do. Because this was the next step in my career and in my life.

The show’s producer told me they got six times the number of listener feedback letters than they usually got—all positive. Unbeknownst to me, they also had a set of a hundred core listeners across the country evaluating me and my performance that weekend—a focus group. And they thought I was great. My parents, my friends, and perfect strangers said there was no way I wouldn’t get that job. I’m pretty sure John Mellencamp would’ve said the same thing. It was meant to be.

I AM AWESOME. I AM TALENTED. PEOPLE LOVE ME!

So I got the call a little over a week ago.

And…

I will not be the next host of Weekend All Things Considered.

I placed second in the NPR host sweepstakes. Literally—they told me I was the runner-up.

Whatdya wanna do now, punk?

Act 3. Getting Back to Remarkable

When J. D. Roth asked me earlier this year about speaking at this event, I told him, Well, you’ve got this theme about being remarkable in a conventional world. And I’m not feeling very remarkable anymore.

How can I pretend to tell anyone else how to be? Especially when there are so many people here who’ve really thought about that idea, who have some fantastic advice for you, things for you to go out and do and try and act on—presentations with bullet points and fun illustrations and real insight.

I don’t have any of that. I’m a journalist. At least I think I still am. For now. We’re a generally cynical lot, not especially given to real introspection or self-analysis. Or PowerPoints.

So—remarkable? I don’t feel remarkable. At least not anymore.

I was, however. I think I was pretty remarkable for having a career of more than two decades. I was lucky to strike gold with the first job I got. Not everyone can say that their first gig turned out to be the only thing they ever wanted to do.

I worked hard for it, but the journey itself wasn’t really that hard. I never struggled to get a job, and I never struggled to keep a job. And in the end, hundreds of thousands of people, on a good day more than a million, wanted to listen to me, to what I had to say.

For eleven years I was "Marketplace’s Tess Vigeland." She and that were nothing short of remarkable.

Now I’m just—Tess Vigeland.

And I have to figure out how she is remarkable.

I know in my head that they’re the same person. But will anyone want to listen to me if I’m not a national journalist anymore? What if I decide to follow what I think might be another passion and go work for the Red Cross, admirably, but relatively anonymously? Do I lose all my Twitter followers and all the fans—strangers—who’ve friended me on Facebook? Will I disappoint all those people who think I was really great at what I did? Does it matter? Why do I care what other people think? I know I’m not supposed to care, but I do.

How do I get back to remarkable?

The only way is by redefining it.

And