In this week’s Career Relaunch episode, David Pullara explains why he decided to leave his job at Google and instead focus his energies on his family and a few passion projects. We discuss respecting your authentic self and pursuing projects that feed your true interests. During today’s Mental Fuel segment, I described what happened when I decided to pursue a couple of my own side interests.

Key Career Insights

* Your authentic self is who you are, how you enjoy spending your time, and comes to life when you’re doing work you enjoy.  If you’re working hard at something you love, it doesn’t feel like work.

* Walking away from a reputable organization is never easy, but if your work there isn’t allowing you to be your best self, there’s nothing wrong with moving on.

* Exploring your personal interests doesn’t mean you have to necessarily transform those interests into a career per se. Simply giving yourself permission to pursue some side interests allows you to feed your soul, live authentically, and uncover some surprising opportunities along the way.

Tweetables to Share

Resources Mentioned

* David wrote this blog post, Why I Left Google where he explained why he decided to leave his job at Google behind. If you’ve ever struggled with leaving your job behind, I’d highly recommend checking it out!

Listener Challenge

During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of giving yourself permission to pursue one of your side interests. What’s one small, concrete step you will commit to taking today to finally get moving’ on that side interest or project you’ve been toying with for so long? I’d love to hear what you plan to do in the comments below.

About David Pullara

David Pullara is a senior business leader with over 16 years of marketing experience working for consumer centric, global companies including Starbucks, Yum! Brands, Coca-­Cola, and most recently Google. As someone who strongly believes in the importance of mentorship, he serves as a Director for the American Marketing Association’s Mentor Exchange Advisory Board. He actively meets with young business leaders through the Ten Thousand Coffees initiative, and he’s currently co-­authoring a book on mentorship scheduled to be published in late 2017.  You can follow David on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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