 So I quit my job. I was a pharmacist working my dream job and making almost $130,000 a year. And ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to be a pharmacist. You see, when I was 16, I woke up in the middle of the night to flashing blue and red lights outside of my window. Now I lived in section eight housing. So it wasn't uncommon for me to see police lights outside of my windows when crimes were committed. But this time it was different because I was also hearing steps inside of my house just outside of my bedroom door. And it wasn't just one pair of footsteps. It was several. And then I heard a knock on my door. Now at first I ignored it, you know, just sitting there with my eyes wide open, you know, face halfway under my covers. And then there was another knock accompanied by an unfamiliar deep voice asking, can I come in? So still confused and halfway asleep, I quietly said, who is it? And they replied, it's the police. Something has happened with your dad. Can we come in? I immediately jumped up and I started frantically putting my clothes on. A policeman came into my room and then I followed him out into the long hallway. At the end of the hall, I saw another police officer, several paramedics and a body lying on the ground. It was my dad and he had suffered a heart attack that kills 94% of people who have it called the widow maker. And he was on the ground fighting for his life. Now the rest of the night was a blur and I just felt so emotionally numb that I could hardly even speak. It's hard to explain, but I almost felt like someone injected a giant needle full of lidocaine directly into my brain. All I really remember from that night is just pacing up and down the floors of the hospital, eyes wide open, like saucers, and I would just stare at the floor that had just been waxed for what seemed like an eternity. And for some reason that is the vision that is extremely vivid in my brain when I try to remember this. Now my dad fought really hard that night and he somehow against all odds survived. I felt a sense of relief the next morning, but I still wasn't recovered from the trauma. I still felt numb. Now a bit after that, when I was still in this state, I was still feeling like I was in a funk. I went to the pharmacy to pick up my dad's medications that had been prescribed to him after his heart attack. Now, to be honest, both my mom and my dad are relatively anti medication. They kind of believe in just, you know, working out and keeping healthy and eating healthy and maybe taking herbal medications sometimes. And because of that, I sort of had the same beliefs about medications. I didn't really trust them, but I was interested in science and healthcare. So when the technician asked if I wanted to be counseled by a pharmacist, I said, yes, the pharmacist walked over smiling at me. She looked at the medications. She looked back up at me, saw that I was a little bit emotional. My eyes were probably tearing up a bit and she immediately knew what had happened. Then she patiently counseled me and answered all the questions that I had about the medications. I could tell that she really cared about me and my dad and she truly wanted to help us. I could also tell she was really passionate about her job and she knew what she was talking about when it came to the medications and immediately my mood was lifted. And shortly after this, I had a stark realization. The pharmacist made me realize that these medications my dad was taking after his heart attack were the only reason that he was still alive. It was really black and white with the medications. His life would be prolonged without the medications. He would just have another heart attack and that would be that. And it was at this moment that I developed an intense interest and passion for pharmacology. And I knew shortly after that I wanted to be a pharmacist, but there was a problem at the time I was a junior in high school and my GPA was somewhere around 2.6. I hated going to school and I never tried in any of my classes. But the more I researched pharmacy, the more I realized that that's what I wanted to do with my life. So after that, I worked incredibly hard in my classes and from that point on I was able to get a 4.0. Then in college, I also worked really hard and did the accelerated program and undergrad. And then I also applied to an accelerated program for graduate school and I was able to get my doctorate in five years and nine months. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it was totally worth it. I was finally a pharmacist. I was doing something that I was passionate about. I had escaped poverty and I was in my dream career, but now I'm quitting this career. And in this video, I'm going to tell you why that is. So there are three big reasons and really these are lessons that I learned that led me to quit this career. And the first one is a question that I asked myself, why work in the first place? Is the purpose of our lives to have as many dopamine spikes as possible and live a hedonistic lifestyle? Or are we here to do something bigger? Now, many people end up dying shortly after they retire because they feel like they no longer have a life purpose. But happiness and having a purpose is an incredibly complicated subject. There are rich people in first world countries that have amazing quality of life and they have a supportive family and friend group, etc. And they're depressed. And then there are poor people from third world countries that have nothing going for them and they have to survive on a day to day basis that are incredibly happy. So there's a lot that goes into happiness and it's an incredibly complex subject. But many people theorize that human beings were actually happier when they were in tribal settings. And one of the main reasons for this is because everybody had their place within the village. For instance, your ancestors might have been one of the only fishermen in your village or the only blacksmith. And in a tribal setting, if someone disappeared, they would truly be missed because there was nobody that could replace them. And everyone relied heavily on everyone else. And this means that they were significant. What they did truly had meaning. They weren't just replaceable worker ants. They actually had a purpose. Now, whatever you believe about happiness, I think that having a purpose definitely gives us a sense of significance. And it's probably one of the most important things when it comes to your career. The second reason to work is so that you can build your skills. The ability to pursue excellence, the ability to have a sense of progress. Now, some people are super competitive and they want to beat everybody else. And some people just want to be better than they were yesterday. But there is definitely something to working hard for years and years and slowly getting better and better at your craft. It gives you a sense of accomplishment that goes far beyond cheap dopamine spikes. It gives you this lasting sense of calm or you might describe it as a mild happiness. And it also helps you to be really good at what you do, which helps you to give value to others. And that leads to the next point, which is the third reason for working, which is helping others. Now, this is one that I've talked about a lot on my channel, but it's a sense of meaning. And this might actually be the most important reason for you to work. And I think this one does kind of go back to ancient times when we all used to rely on each other in small tribes. And I remember reading about this in a fantastic book. I'm pretty sure it was this book. It was how to win friends and influence people. And basically one of the things that Dale Carnegie said in that book is you want to give value and expect nothing in return, right? So you don't just give value and then you stare at them like, what, you know, what are you going to give me now? You give value and you expect absolutely nothing in return. And when you do this consistently, good things tend to happen in your life. And helping others has always been something that's given me a tremendous amount of satisfaction. And one thing I noticed about myself is oftentimes I will work harder to solve other people's problems than I will to solve my own. And that hasn't always been the best thing, especially as an entrepreneur. But at the same time, I think it's a mindset that has helped me out quite a bit in my life. Now, the fourth reason to work is for passion, having fun. This one is really important, too. Now, some people will say this is the most important thing. And I think for some people, that's probably true. But at the same time, I think this one is a little bit overrated. And I also think that it gives people really unrealistic expectations of work. You're never going to love every moment of your work. Just like in a relationship, you're not always going to be happy with your partner. Even making these videos, this is super fun. Making videos is one of my passions. I get to basically research, write an essay and then film it. But there were many times that it became a grind and it wasn't fun at all. So I'm not always having fun making these videos, but overall I enjoy it. So you definitely don't want to do something that you hate or that you're bad at or you have zero passion for. Make sure you do something that you can at least mildly enjoy and you can do it for 10 to 20 years. Now, the last reason to work, and this is important no matter what anyone says is money. Now, when it comes to money, when it comes to salary, there's a lot of people out there who try to minimize the importance of it. And I noticed that the majority of these people who talk about this have never had to live without money. And I think Casey Neistat summarized this in the best way that I've ever seen. So I'm just going to play a really short clip from his video. Rich or poor, we all face these problems, problems that all call life problems. Life problems are things like finding happiness and finding love and a sense of fulfillment in your life and a sense of purpose, maybe in your career, etc. These are life problems. These are problems we all rich or poor encounter. Money won't solve these problems. But when you're broke on top of and I mean that literally and figuratively on top of these problems, you've got money problems and money problems are things like how am I going to pay rent? How am I going to pay for food? I'm sick and can't afford to go to the doctor. I can't get a job because I can't drive to work. I don't have any nice clothes to wear that job interview and things like that. So he did a great job explaining why money is important, especially up to a certain level. And as someone who has lived most of his life with very little money, I completely agree with him. But with that being said, money also isn't everything when it comes to work and you should not make your career decisions based solely on how much money you make. So the five things that I came up with were having a purpose, building skills, helping others, passion and money. But I realized there was one huge problem with looking at work like this. You can have a purpose outside of work. For instance, you could work on making your community better in your free time. You can build skills without going to a job as well. For instance, you could start a YouTube channel and work on your videography skills. You can also help others without having a job. No one stopping you from going and handing out pizzas to homeless people on a whim. And you can definitely have a passion for something without working. In fact, if you're being honest with yourself, most people out there probably enjoy their passions and their hobbies more than they enjoy their job. So the last thing was money. And this was something that I had a serious hang up on basically my entire life growing up poor. But money was really no longer an issue. I was making more from YouTube alone than my full time job. And the truth is I'd been making more from YouTube for quite a while. So I established that all of these reasons why I would have my job I could do outside of it. So what was the real reason why I wasn't quitting? It was fear, the fear of losing something and more specifically the sunk cost fallacy. And this is when someone is fearful or reluctant of abandoning a strategy that they have invested heavily in. Now, this fallacy is the reason that people stay in bad relationships. It's the reason that gamblers keep on gambling even when they know they've lost a lot. And it's the reason that people have trouble changing their jobs when they've outgrown them. I had spent so much time getting my degree and becoming a pharmacist that I was afraid to give it up. And when I honestly got lucky and yes, there is a lot of luck involved in this and I achieved a level of financial independence at an early age, I felt paralyzed. I was prepared to try and start a business on the side while I was a pharmacist for 10, 20, even 30 years. I knew what the statistics were when it came to businesses and I knew I would probably fail over and over again. And I didn't expect to find success right away. So I had some real thinking to do because I was letting fear guide my decisions rather than love. The second lesson I learned was about the balance of time, energy, money and fun. So in 2019, I was working as a pharmacist. I was regularly uploading to YouTube and I also had two other businesses. One of them was a service-based business and the other one was a consulting business. And my businesses were all doing relatively well at different points in time. I was making several thousand dollars a month with each of them. But many of my days looked kind of like this. I would wake up at 5.30 a.m. I would work out, then I would work on my business until 8.30. Then I would drive to my job and work a 12-hour shift from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. And I would take as many breaks as I could while I was at my job on my phone answering questions from clients and comments on my channel. Then I would drive home, work on my businesses again until midnight and I would pass out. Then I would wake up the next day and do it all over again. And then in December of 2019, I decided to do a 30-day challenge where I'd upload a video every single day for all of December. So my schedule was even more hectic then and I was easily clocking over 100 hours a week. Now, the stress from doing this 30-day challenge led me to get what later on I identified when I took a blood test as the illness that happened. After getting the illness, I also ended up getting pneumonia. And I was sick for the last two weeks of December and I had to give up on the 30-day challenge. Now, weirdly, after I was over the sickness, I realized that I had lingering effects where my energy just wasn't as high as it used to be. And I could no longer work those long hours that I used to. So stress, limited energy and limited time led me to seek out alternative solutions to what I was doing and my workload. And that's when I picked up the book, the one thing, and it made me realize that I need to focus my energy on less tasks. When I get pulled in 10 different directions all at once, I end up not getting nearly as much done. And so I had to give up all of my side hustles even though I was doing relatively well with them. And instead of focusing on like five different things, I started focusing all of my attention on my job and YouTube. And by December of 2019, I was making a full-time income on YouTube. And by August of 2020, I was making more money from YouTube than I was from my job. But there was a big problem. For a while, making over double my pharmacy income made me feel really good. But the feeling quickly faded and I was back to square one. And this is the hedonic treadmill. And it's where when good things happen to you, you tend to return back to your baseline level of happiness over time. And that is when creeping thoughts started to pop into my head. I was on track to retire by the time I'm 35. So why was I stressing myself out and working so hard? I also wasn't any happier making well over $200,000 a year than I was when I was making 100,000. And even though I was focusing on less things, I still found that I was split between my job as well as YouTube. And I wasn't able to fully focus on one or the other. For instance, I kept on having to turn down requests for consultations. There were people who needed my help and I wanted to help them but I just simply did not have time to do it. And this made me realize that even though I had dropped my other side hustles, I still wasn't fully following the advice from the book, The One Thing. Now, number three and probably the most important realization that I had is that I can make a bigger impact outside of my job. Now, you might think I'm crazy when I say this, but I can help more people by making YouTube videos than by being a pharmacist. And here's why. It's because of the relationship between the value you give and the number of people you can help that is limited by time. So for instance, on one extreme end of the spectrum, you have surgeons that give tremendous value to the people they do surgeries on. But if they do a 12 hour surgery, they can only help one person per day. And then as you move down where the accesses meet, you'll see examples of jobs that almost everybody can do that mildly give value, mildly help people out. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who don't give all that much value but they reach millions of people. This would be an example of somebody who maybe entertains you. They make you laugh a little bit. They just, you know, bring your spirits up during the day. And I realized that I am not a special pharmacist. You know, there's a pharmacist I knew about in Las Vegas, for instance, that worked at an HIV clinic. And she memorized thousands of different patients profiles. So she knew all the patients health conditions and she knew all the medications they were taking. And because of that, she was able to not only give the patient better experience, but she was also able to be much more efficient than any other pharmacist. And the truth is I am not that special when it comes to being a pharmacist. If I were to be replaced, another pharmacist would do pretty much the same job that I would. Now, what I do consider myself to be world class at is helping people find their ideal college degrees and careers. I also consider myself to be world class at helping normal people with personal finance, not get rich type content that you usually see here on YouTube, but normal people who want to just get a good job and then maybe someday start their own business or maybe they try to retire early just with their job alone. This is something that truly is possible for just about anybody to do. Whereas a lot of the businesses you see recommended on YouTube have something like a 1% success rate. So why not leverage my strengths and help people with something that I'm uniquely good at rather than do something that so many others could do just as well? And why not do something where I can help thousands of people a day rather than just a few? And it was for all of these reasons that I realized I need to quit my job. Now, these are the main reasons but there were other things that I'll just briefly mention. First of all, I was very limited to what I could say on YouTube because of my job. Now, when I first started making content, I asked my boss if there were any issues when it came to making it and she said that it's fine as long as it doesn't have anything to do with pharmacy and it's not controversial. Now, I have kind of walked the tightrope there because I have made a few videos that are a little bit controversial and I also have mentioned pharmacy several times in my videos. Now, I don't consider myself to be too controversial. I really just try to avoid drama but I do want to have the freedom to say anything that I believe in and I don't want to have to worry about what the company thinks or my boss or coworkers or patients. And honestly, balancing a professional career while also being a public figure like an educator and an entertainer has some issues that you probably would never even think about. For instance, there was one time where I left a little piece of information in one of my videos and somehow someone was able to do some really creepy detective work, find out where I worked and they actually showed up. This was a very small amount of information and this person had to go into full stock remote in order to find me. Not cool. Another reason is I wanted to have more freedom to travel and kind of just live a little bit of an alternative lifestyle while I'm young. I know that eventually I'm going to settle down and have a family and this might be the only time in my life where I can travel around, maybe live in a place for one month then travel to another place, live there for another month. And then another really big thing is I also want to see how good my content can get if I'm fully focusing on it. Before now, this has always been a part-time thing. I've always had a full-time job working about 40 hours a week. So I want to see how good I can make my content and how far I can take this YouTube channel when I'm focusing on it full-time. Now I will still be working part-time as a pharmacist because I want to keep my license and I want to stay updated on the newest information and it's possible that none of this works out and I wouldn't be mad at all going back to pharmacy because I really did enjoy pharmacy but I knew that if I didn't take this chance I would regret it for the rest of my life. Now, no matter what, I will always remember the incredible moments that I had working in the pharmacy field and I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart. I don't regret it at all, but it's time to move on.