Suck it, recession! Quit your day job!

It’s a recession alright. You don’t have to tell us that when there’s a 7 percent unemployment rate in Minnesota and the thought of paying $4.23 for a single red pepper at the co-op sends one (ok, me) into a sweaty panic attack. Now, even if we weren’t knee deep in a recession, we’d never, ever tell* anyone to quit their jobs. (*We at Good Work Group are not responsible for lost carts, lost items, lost jobs, or  blah, blah, blah insert lawyer-speak here.)  But we couldn’t help but be a little inspired and excited about the upcoming seminar on Thursday, July 22, Suck it, Recession! How to Quit Your Job (Without Losing Your Mind),  at the Co-working and Collaborative Space (CoCo) in St. Paul.

The half-day seminar focuses on social, financial, professional, and emotional planning for quitting your job and starting your own business. Motivating, right? Find your passion and do what you truly love? In fact, CoCo itself is an inspiring little tale of community, creativity, and entrepreneurship: The collaborative space allows independent workers and small businesses to work together on ideas big and small, or to just simply share a space where great ideas are born. So it makes sense that a seminar about quitting your day job and finding your passion would be held inside the walls where day-job-quitters sip on free morning coffee and conspire to make the world a better place.

Of course, the seminar is inspiring for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we believe social entrepreneurship and creative investments are the keys to healthy, thriving, and equitable cities. It’s the reason we started Good Work Group. We wanted to put our expertise and passions into helping others who are doing “good work” thrive; to help them with messaging, branding, outreach, social media, and growth so that new connections and ideas are formed, and our communities and social-cause organizations and businesses benefit and flourish.

We didn’t exactly quit our day jobs to start Good Work Group. But we’ve definitely turned down high-paying work because it didn’t align with our values. Was it scary? Totally. We both are paying mortgages by ourselves; we didn’t know what was next. But we believe in what we are doing. And we couldn’t be happier and more inspired to do Good Work. Now go quit your day job and do what you love!* (See lawyer-speak note above…and keep your shopping carts away from expensive cars.)

–Molly P.

Tags: social entrepreneurship; recession; co-working spaces; CoCo; Co-Working and Collaborative Space; unemployment; Minnesota