Advocating non-conformity for the sake of it is the career version of the moody teenager who just wants to be different. We are not encouraging petulant rebellion, we are urging you to consciously differentiate yourself from the established way of doing things precisely because the estab- lished way is unlikely to give you what you want. Fitting in may feel safe. However, in a hugely competitive job market and weak economy the surest way to become irrelevant is to keep your head down. You need to stand out. When the chips are down you don’t want to be the one asking for permission.

Paul Graham, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur, startup mentor and essay- ist, compares graduate job-seeking behaviour to animals being let out of cages and not realizing that the door is open. We are all influenced by the cages of our existence. The fact that we aren’t immediately aware of them makes them all the more effective. The belief that “the route to success is to get a good job” is so ingrained it’s almost a religion. People often react to alternative advice with absolute horror. Just as they do when they hear young people being advised against going to university. These are powerful norms.

Doing something different is scary. Quitting your job is scary.

Starting your own business is scary. Having no income for a while is scary. Changing jobs is scary.

Taking a point of view is scary. Cold calling is scary.

Public speaking is scary.

Being challenged is scary. Managing people is scary. Saying no is scary.

Being in it for the long run is scary. Talking to aggressive journalists is scary.

If you are considering quitting your corporate job for something more exciting, unconventional or adventurous, many people will tell you that it isn’t a good idea. Sometimes these people will be your nearest friends and family. They’ll be naturally risk-averse because they don’t want to see you in trouble (financially or otherwise). Other people will project their hopes and fears onto you if you do something different. You implicitly represent a challenge to their life choices. Expect criticism. Use this as fuel for your motivation!

Beware advice. There is an awful lot of unsolicited and bad advice out there. Advice is usually based on the experiences and worldview of the person giving the advice – not based on a real understanding of your goals. You are the only person who really knows what you are trying to achieve. When you ask people for advice they will generally tell you to do what they’ve done. Unless it went badly, in which case they’ll tell you to do the opposite. People give you advice based on what worked for them. Not necessarily what will work for you.

The world is full of all different types of people. It’s one of the reasons why life is so exciting. Optimists and pessimists, cynics and enthusiasts. When you’re making any big life change you really need to surround yourself with glass-half-full people. You need all the buoyancy you can get. The tricky thing is that often those closest to you will be the ones telling you that your plans are a bad idea. There’s very little you can do other than tell them that you’re really excited about your plans and that you’d appreciate their support.

Illegitimi non carborundum. 

Anyone who has achieved anything worth admiring, envying or copying has had to commit. At some point, they had to grit their teeth and turn inaction into action. They didn’t necessarily have to quit their job and tell everyone they’d ever met (although sometimes that helps). But they did have to overcome their fear of the unknown and create some kind of motion in the outside world.

The surest way to force yourself to do something is to publicly commit. Once you’ve told all your friends that you’re cycling to Rome for charity, it’s hard to tell them that you’re not going to do it. Once you’ve resigned from your job and told your boss that you’re starting a mobile tea busi- ness, it would give your pride quite a knock to ask for your job back.

Start small but aim high. If someone had told us three years ago that we’d be running a business that helps people escape their jobs, with over a 100,000 members, a published book, a base in New York and a team of eight people . . . we’d have laughed at them. However, had we not com- mitted to starting the Escape the City blog back in 2009 we never would have set ourselves on this path and you wouldn’t be reading this book today.

The temptation is always to say “oh let’s just wait until we’ve got that bit built” or “we’ll be ready when x, y or z happens”. It’s really important to accept that nothing is going to be perfect and you can usually always change things. Escape the City will probably never be “ready”. There’s always another improvement. Fight your natural perfectionism and get stuff out there. You’ll fix things quicker if they’re already in public.

We started a blog and started spreading the word about our concept. No idea remains unchanged by contact with the people you are building it for. The other thing to remember is that you’re not really in public. In three years time with a massive customer base you’ll be in public. Cur- rently just your mum, a few friends and a couple of random Facebook fans have a clue what you’re doing. So develop your idea in front of them and embrace early low-key failures. Keep the problem you’re trying to solve clear but be brave enough to change tactics as you go.

Make decisions quickly. It’s really hard to agonize over decisions. Some- times they are worth agonizing over. Sometimes you need more informa- tion, advice or events need to take place in order for you to make a decision. A few things worth bearing in mind: there is rarely a “right” or “wrong” decision . . . there are just different (often multiple) paths that you could take. This is true for life as well as in business. We’ve found that it’s far better to make a decision and get on with the plan (without looking over your shoulder) than to waste too much time trying to figure out what to do.

The sooner you can get someone to pay you the better. It doesn’t matter if it’s not in your world-beating business plan. As long as you have enough revenues to cover your base costs (and keep your costs really low) your business won’t die. Isn’t that an exciting thought?

FROM CHAPTER 7: ADVENTURE

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 6: FIND AN EXCITING JOB

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 5: EVOLUTION NOT REVOLUTION

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 5: EVOLUTION NOT REVOLUTION

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 4: THE MONEY QUESTION

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 4: THE MONEY QUESTION

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 3: GRADUAL EPIPHANIES

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

Tim Ferriss (author of The 4-Hour Work Week) calls it The deferred life Plan. Alastair Humphreys (who cycled around the world) calls it The Race To The Biggest Gravestone. Randy Komisar (author of The Monk and The Riddle) calls it “The Biggest Risk of All” (the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later). In the context of corporate jobs, we call it the “I’ll do This For 5 Years And Then I’ll Go do Something Else” promise.

Our moment of truth came when we realized that we were no longer kids and that it was time to take responsibility for our path in life. Just the other day we were fresh-faced graduates with ideals, naïvety and dreams. Then suddenly we were getting grey hairs. Time started going by really fast and, for some reason (perhaps it was the routine of the corporate world) seemed to be accelerating! Why were we spending our precious time doing things that didn’t matter to us?!

Spending time doing work that you don’t want to do, you are wasting valuable time that could be spent discovering new interests and devel- oping skills, contacts and experiences in new areas.

FROM CHAPTER 3: GRADUAL EPIPHANIES

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

FROM CHAPTER 2: THOUGHTS & BLOCKERS

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

• “We’re waiting for the right business idea…”
• “We’re waiting to find our dream jobs…”
• “We’re waiting to discover our passions…”
• “We’re waiting for the right time…”

Waiting is passive and it involves a fundamental misunderstanding about the way the world works. We were like the little boys standing up against the wall in the playground, waiting to be picked for a team. The reality is that in order to find new opportunities, develop new interests, or come up with an exciting business idea you’re going to have to act.

We had fallen into the trap of thinking that we might wake up one day and “just know” what it is we were meant to do with our lives. Having worked on Escape the City for three years we now realize that this kind of thinking is extremely dangerous because it delays the essential work of taking the required steps to make things happen for yourself.

FROM CHAPTER 2: THOUGHTS & BLOCKERS

By now, you’re probably aware that we wrote a book (you helped!) and we’re excited to be really close to the final publish date. The Escape Manifesto (#escapemanifesto on Twitter) is the book behind the movement and is here to support, inspire and encourage us all to make big and brave transitions in our lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing snippets on this blog.

Ask yourself two questions, two questions that you have no doubt asked on many occasions when your evening plan evaporates into thin air as you are yet again required to stay late to work on a seemingly important task:

Question 1: Why am I working for this organization?

Question 2: Am I crazy if I don’t want to be here?

The problem is that the decision-making process that got you to where you are today may not have been entirely your own. Often the values of your work environment don’t reflect your own. Often it’s easier to inherit external definitions of success than it is to cultivate your own.

We reasoned that it was more important to focus on what we did want to do rather than wallow in the negatives of what we didn’t. However, we also realized that you do need to understand what you don’t like in order to discover what could make you tick.

How can you avoid your enemy if you can’t even identify him?

Open your eyes. You are on a Travelator.

Walk it knowingly or get off.