Six Months In The Creator Economy - Michael Ashcroft (Part 3)
In parts 1 and 2, I interviewed Michaelabout his plan to quit his comfortable consulting job and start a new path creating and selling courses online.
Let’s see how he reacts to his own quotes from a year earlier!
Transcript
In parts 1 and 2, I interviewed Michael about his plan to quit his comfortable consulting job and start a new path creating and selling courses online. Let's see how he reacts to his own quotes from a year earlier!
Read the full transcript
Paul: Today's episode is the third in a series of podcasts with Michael Ashcroft, from deciding to leave his job to quitting his job to 6 months after leaving his job. And today's conversation is that third conversation. If you want to catch up on where we are in the series, just go back, scroll down in your podcast feed, and you should find the first 2 combined in one episode. You can also find them on YouTube if you want the visual flair of looking at me and Michael, and I'll link up to those in the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
So we are back with Michael Ashcroft. This is round 3 of reflecting on taking the leap. So the first time we talked was almost a year ago. I think you were thinking about leaving your job. You had been experimenting with side gigs. The second time we talked was about, what was it, 9 months ago?
It was a few months before you quit your job. And now we're talking 6 months after you took the leap. That's right. So welcome back. For round 3. I'm excited to dig into this.
I listened back to the past episodes. You said you did not. I'd love to just start with 6 months before you quit, you described yourself, you said, I am an engagement manager at KPMG. I want to see how that felt for you now. That was— I said, who are you and what is your story? And that was your first sentence.
Yeah, you said, I am an engagement manager at KPMG.
Michael Ashcroft: Oh, that doesn't feel good. Why? Wow. Okay, it's just, first of all, like, I wasn't hugely comfortable in that role. So the fact that I went straight in saying I am my job title and organization is stronger than I thought I would have been. But I guess, yeah, that, that was still how I was defining myself in a way, like, kind of based around work framings and all that stuff.
So it feels weird to think back on that now.
Paul: So the second part was that, uh, you're a guy who works on climate change type things.
Michael Ashcroft: Yeah, I now only do online courses and blog and, uh, teach Alexander Technique and coaching and stuff. So that's a complete change as well. That feels weird. That's, that's harder actually because that one was part of my story in a much bigger way. Um, like my identity was much more like, yeah, I work in low carbon innovation and that's my thing. And like letting go of that has been harder than the job I just had.
Paul: Yeah. Yeah, so, so let's backtrack a bit. What was it like, uh, stepping away, like that, that final day at work and actually leaving? Because we talked to only when you had quit and you still had 2 months to work at the company, what was it like on that final day? Were you like more than ready to walk out of there?
Michael Ashcroft: I was, I was pretty done, partly because we have 3-month notice periods here in the UK, so it's quite common. So like 3 months is a long time, it doesn't get easier. I've done it 3 times. To be honest, it was a bit anticlimactic because Because of COVID like, we'd been home the entire time anyway. So like, the transition was like someone came to pick up my laptop and like take it away, and that was it, right? There wasn't a sense of— please forgive the doorbell if you can hear it, it's still working from home— there wasn't a sense of like goodbye speech that I've had in other places, or drinks, or any kind of closure.
It was just like all right, close the laptop, that's it. Um, and then it took me a few weeks to kind of settle into, oh, actually I don't have a job now. That, that weirdly, I would think I would have preferred some kind of like hard boundary of like, here's a ritual or something around leaving, but that didn't happen, so I had to kind of make my own.
Paul: Yeah, when I left, it was, you're at the office one day, and then my first day off was a Friday, so it was Friday and it was just home, and I just like, I felt like I was in the void. Um, so what were those first 2 weeks like for you?
Michael Ashcroft: I remember trying to, like, trying to do relaxation almost, or trying to do having fun. So I remember one of the first things I did was, like, download, um, Civilization VI, the video game. I'm just like, I'm gonna have fun now, I'm gonna play video games. And I found it so difficult because partly because I think I chose the wrong game. I chose, like, one of the most strategic, long-term thinking type intellectual games I could have. I think that's just what I just left and quit.
I don't want to do strategy again on a game. But yeah, I was like, okay, I must like log my experience, I must take selfies to see how much my face relaxes, I'll try and play, I'll like do all the I've left my work thing. But it didn't really work out that well. It was just like I was in kind of a weird no man's land between still feeling employed and like I had to fill the day with stuff and actually letting go almost.
Paul: So a year ago you said at age 30 you had a burnout experience, and then after that you returned to work and you were worked for a couple years, but you always felt like you were at 75%. And because of that, you always felt like you never were really going full out. And one of your fears you shared with taking this leap was that you may never overcome that. What's your journey with that been over the last year?
Michael Ashcroft: Yeah, it's a good one because I can still kind of feel that thing there a little bit, and I think it will go away now. I framed it in the sense of if you want to recover, you can't start from here, where here is being in the job, because there needs to be a complete off period, I think, and then return to whatever the new state will look like. I've been very intentionally not hitting the gas pedal, so to speak. Like, I have the course I've built, I have all kinds of stuff I could be doing. I could be going like, okay, scale, scale, scale, grow, like, whatever. But I'm not, I'm not doing that.
I'm very intentionally having very open days and seeing what comes up. That's now getting a bit boring, honestly. Like, I feel like I'm, I'm naturally inclined to do more things, but I'm still only working like 15, 20 hours a week ultimately. and dealing with what that looks like ultimately as well.
Paul: All right, so, so really only 15 to 20 per week these days?
Michael Ashcroft: Well, okay, this is the tricky thing about being self-employed is that there's no, there's no boundary. Um, so like if I, if I take away all the what I would call dicking about, like kind of scrolling through social media or like pseudo-working or like just sitting there looking like I'm working, then I'm not really getting that much focused time done. Um, that's something to deal with, I think. At the same time, um, there is an issue where like everything I could be doing anytime could be work. Like reading any book, taking any like journaling exercise could be a blog post or whatever. So like, it's— that's a weird thing.
Um, I don't really count hanging out in my community forum as work. If I go in there for 5 minutes every day, like that is work technically, but it doesn't really feel like it. So actually it's really difficult to say how much I'm working or not working, but my, like, the feeling of it compared to a working week at KPMG is like, it's way, way less felt sense of work, at least.
Paul: Yeah. What— how is your relationship to when you work changed? Do you think of Monday through Friday as the work week still?
Michael Ashcroft: So a little bit, um, only because my girlfriend works the same, like, normal working hours, and I prefer to align my free time with hers. Otherwise, it's kind of silly. It's like, yeah, she's free, but I'm— yeah, now I'm working. It doesn't work. But beyond that, there's really nothing that makes any day different from other days, apart from like calls I happen to have, for example. So if it weren't for like living with her, actually, I probably would just find every day to be the same.
There's no sense of what days are working days or not. I'd work into the nights and stuff just because I can. So I don't think that's a good thing, but I definitely could do that if I wanted to.
Paul: You said kind of your fears when you were thinking about this leap are just a general fear of being afraid that things won't work, and the second one was that you'll get what you want and then you may not actually want it. So what have you discovered in these first 6 months? Is this a 10-year journey you're on? Is it something you're really not sure what it looks like, or something else?
Michael Ashcroft: My sense is that this is a long-term journey now. I don't regret my move at all. It's been successful in the sense that I built something that people want to buy, and they're buying it. I'm enjoying the lifestyle, and I'm looking forward to doing it more so when restrictions lift from COVID So traveling a bit and doing a site— not full nomadic lifestyle, but at least having a year or two of just kind of getting away from current lifestyle and then coming back to it perhaps. But I'm not doing this with the sense that, oh, I'll get a job again one day. I planned for this to be a forever thing unless I just, I have different preferences or something cool comes up or whatever.
Um, yeah, no, I don't want to, I don't do that. But what I actually have realized is quite interesting is particularly in the course creation world is let's say that I do go back to work at the same time build a course that is moderately successful, I can still generate a bunch of money from that and take a different kind of job because of that. And that's huge. It means I don't have to go back to the same kind of job. I can get a more fun, lower paid, better location, whatever kind of job and supplement my income with this course that I've built in my time off. So I kind of, I viewed it as a win-win or a kind of a very low regrets pathway if I were to even be mildly successful at this.
Not successful enough to stay out of work. So yeah, that was a really helpful reframe that has turned out to be true, I think.
Paul: What are some of the most surprising things you've realized?
Michael Ashcroft: What's interesting is that my, I guess, my baseline happiness hasn't really changed, or at least that the felt experience inside each day. I remember that I had huge anxiety and stress and just like aversion back when I was in the job. And if I contrast my days now that's absent, right? There's a new kind of anxiety of like, okay, I need to make money, I need to like, what the hell am I doing? And like, I have no experience in doing what I'm doing, what the hell do I think I'm doing kind of narrative.
Paul: But welcome, welcome to that.
Michael Ashcroft: Okay, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but that's fine. So it's more like it didn't measurably make me much happier, but it just took away a bunch of bad things and gave me scope to like to play around. I think I need to or what this has shown is that taking stuff out of life doesn't automatically add new stuff. And it's the addition of new stuff that I need to be intentional about that will bring me the fulfillment I want. But you need to make space for that in the first place.
Not just space for the new stuff, but space to think about what that new stuff might even look like.
Paul: So base-level happiness is similar, but there's a certain kind of resistance or anxiety that has disappeared, and that space is clearing up more room to think.
Michael Ashcroft: Exactly. Yeah, I never wake up and go like, ugh, and I never dread Sunday evenings. Like, I wish the weekend were longer. Like, it's Monday morning now, and my Monday looks very much like my Sunday did, right? I'm talking to you and some friends, and like, yeah, it's all very similar. So I guess what that does actually illustrate is that the quality of my life and my own internal state, if you like, is like on me in some sense.
It's my fault if it goes well or not. I can no longer blame— there's no boss to point at saying it's his fault I'm having a bad day, right? No, it's just my fault. I don't know how to plan my tasks. I'm not good at focusing, or whatever it is. It's all on me now.
So that's a whole different kind of thing to deal with.
Paul: Yeah, there's, there's power in that. I think that overwhelms some people. I like it mostly because I spend zero minutes a year looking for excuses or explaining or trying to like analyze situation. It's so easy to get caught up in that company because there's so much drama and gossip and stories at all times.
Michael Ashcroft: That's one thing I'm changing actually, I think. Being frank with myself, I did have a little bit of a— I want to say a victim thing going on, but I was too easy to say like, oh, these external circumstances, look at these reasons why I'm unhappy, or I had a bad day because of this thing at work. Which, you know, to one extent is a fair thing to say. To another extent, it's like it's not helpful, and it's something I don't want to carry on with me. I have much more power now, and I want to learn how to use how to wield that power in a constructive way rather than get stuck in the old mode.
Paul: Yeah, it's a yes and, right? It's this situation is harmful for me, but I'm also opting into this.
Michael Ashcroft: Yeah, yeah, so exactly, I'm giving consent to complain almost.
Paul: Yeah, so when you, 3 months before you quit, or 2 or 3 months, uh, you said your prediction about your leap was, I can survive. And once I've let go of the job situation, I have a suspicion that a whole bunch of energy will get unlocked. It will be that stuff that shapes my life going forward. Um, like that energy and that emergent, um, are you starting to experience that?
Michael Ashcroft: I'm starting to. And that's one of my biggest takeaways, is just how long that's taken. Like, it— like, I was kind of pointing to, like, I was expecting, okay, one week in, two weeks in, one month in, like, I'll have the energy. Like, hang on, no, I was actually exhausted and, like, just disinterested for six months. And I'm, like, now going, like, oh, actually, okay, let's go and do some cool stuff. Um, I really underestimated how long that would take.
Paul: Yeah, I think we were talking last week, uh, I said for me it was 7 to 8 months. For the like positive energy started emerging. But yeah, it takes different amounts of time for different people, I think.
Michael Ashcroft: And I wouldn't say I'm there yet. I think if you were to ask me again in 6 months, we're like, no, actually, yeah, I wasn't really there yet. There's 6 months in, probably takes even longer. There is a confound with COVID It's just, it's been difficult to live a life outside of that frame. But yeah, it's It is interesting how long it took to let all the kind of the processes unwind themselves I didn't even know were there. Um, like, I think it took about 3 or 4 months before I felt okay having a day doing nothing, and I stopped kind of beating myself up for like, oh, this is a non-productive day.
Like, now I'm just like, okay, well, that happened. No one— doesn't matter, right? It literally doesn't matter unless I have a goal I'm not moving towards, which I don't really— I didn't have that many goals to move towards. It's fine. So just becoming okay with that, it's fine, and has been a big thing, and now I don't beat myself up that much.
Paul: How does it feel being an illegible person in a wage-based world where people define themselves through a job?
Michael Ashcroft: That's hard, actually. I think I've been sheltered from that slightly because, again, because I've been at home so much, I don't really meet people from the outside world that much, new people. So on Twitter, in these communities, it's like, it's normal to be weird. But when I occasionally meet someone, they say, so what do you do? And I don't want to explain what Alizan Technique is in that kind of 10-second interaction. I do not want to go there.
So I might say I make online courses, I'm an online educator, or I work in what, that kind of online marketing maybe. I might say I'm a YouTuber. I might say I'm a writer. Like, it's all of these things are technically true, but none of them really fit. I think that's fine though. I'd rather, I'd rather have like a long list of that kind of fit than one thing that feels overly tight, like the, I'm an engagement manager at KPMG, how legible is that?
And I'm dying inside. That's, that's not something I want.
Paul: Have you started to put just more importance on making other like friends like me and what that means for your longer term journey?
Michael Ashcroft: Yeah, it's interesting. Um, when I first started out, I was still in the like, hey, let's do a one-off, let's do like intro Zoom call and then leave it there. And I think now I've got like 5 recurring, hey, let's just chat once a week, once a month, and let's get to know each other. And like, I feel like the friend thing is now beginning to actually make sense. Um, I think because in the past I just didn't have that much time to do calls, I didn't have that much like flexibility to do them when people were around and that kind of thing. The stuff I was doing wasn't interesting to them either, whereas now I can relate to people much more easily.
Um, but yeah, it's, it's nice to find people who understand, who are on the same Pathless Path, um, and be able to just like, you get it, cool. I don't need to explain all this stuff I'm feeling because like I can just point to it like, yeah, that thing, cool, I get it, yeah, been there.
Paul: Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, you're going through that stage now, okay, yeah, you'll be okay in a couple months. It sucks right now, but, uh Yeah, um, good. Yeah, so, um, what, what's next? Like, what is— maybe we'll keep doing these every year until we're, uh, 80.
Michael Ashcroft: That'd be awesome, actually. It'd be a great thing to look back on. I think what's next is to get my course to a place where I'm happy to say, like, it's done. Not done, but like, it's sufficiently finished so I can release it and, you know, whatever. Um, But beyond that, I would like to start to leave the country a bit and just go other places, live a bit of life, um, and not— so I have it basically as a fork in my road. I could either really push hard and grow the things I'm growing, or I could be like, look, I have decades for this, um, I'm not going to, um, cram my life full of work.
One day I might, one day I might think, okay, there's a startup here, I'm going to scale it, I'm going to do the thing, but right now I'm not in that space. So the path I'm taking is going to be like, okay, see what comes up, like space, um, and keep working on my stuff in the background and just see what serendipities come up. So of course some coaching, writing, reading, YouTube videos, fun, as much as I can basically.
Paul: Were you surprised at any of the things you said?
Michael Ashcroft: I'm not surprised, um, like I'm not that far away from him that he's alien to me. It's a bit jarring, I guess, simulating him in my head again. I think one of my experiences now is that I'm sufficiently far out that I feel like a different person, but I'm still close enough that I can remember what it was like. So not surprised, but like saddened by the, the, I am an engagement manager. Like, that was like, okay, there's more to you than that.
Paul: I want to hug your former self.
Michael Ashcroft: Exactly. It's like, don't worry, it'll be okay.
Paul: Awesome. What advice would you give to somebody at your stage or even right before they're about to take the leap?
Michael Ashcroft: So like me over a year ago, you mean?
Paul: Yeah, I mean, it could be somebody that's about to quit their job or somebody that's at their early stages of just quitting.
Michael Ashcroft: So I guess the all the common sense stuff, like they'll probably have enough money and a plan of what to do, is all kind of assumed. So I would say don't rush straight into something new. Really allow for the time required to decompress and for other stuff to come up that you might not expect. Because the person that you are— I was when, when quitting— is fundamentally not the person who has the insights that, you know, this is a transformation process of becoming someone new who isn't defined by the job. And then that person has the ideas for where to go next. You don't want to be deciding where to go next while you're still in the job frame, right?
Because you can't possibly see what is open to you at that point.
Paul: I love that. Yeah, it's— you can't have a 5-year plan because the 6-months-from-now version is going to be a lot smarter. So let's just wait and see what he comes up with.
Michael Ashcroft: Yeah, exactly. So just, just wait. Just like, your, your goal is to get to him rather than to figure out what he will be doing in 5 years' time. Almost talking to myself.
Paul: Awesome. Well, thank you for checking in. Uh, we will add this and hopefully people find this valuable.
Michael Ashcroft: Sounds good. Now, thank you for— thank you for inviting me back on, and thank you for suggesting that we do this a year ago. It's been It's been really fun to watch it progress.
