I quit my steady corporate job (and the money that went with it) to lead a more fulfilling life making latkes. Was it worth it?
By Dori Fern
Millie, a content program about women and money, is licensed from Dotdash Meredith, publisher of Real Simple, InStyle, Investopedia, The Balance and more.
A week into my latke pop-up, I awoke in the middle of the night with tingling down my arms and excruciating pain in my hands.
Adding to my discomfort, dogged self-doubt clung to me like the duck fat and sunflower oil my latkes are fried in. Maybe, I thought, food pop-ups should remain in the realm of intrepid young chefs, not a 55-year-old career changer like me—not even one with professional culinary skills and a minor renown as a potato-pancake maven.
A pressing desire to explore my unchartered, “If not now, when?” path was what drove me to quit my well-paying, corporate marketing job; I was on a quest to live my life with more purpose and passion. That was the idea, anyhow.
Here I was, attempting to transform what was once a popular, annual latke party for friends and family into a more formal, charitable venture. I wondered if the traditional, fried Hanukkah food could be part of a sustainable, year-round, nonprofit business. I also wanted to explore my desire to cook professionally, beyond latkes. Now was my chance to wonder less and try more.
My venture, called Life-Changing Latkes (a riff on the podcast I’m producing, Life-Changing with Dori Fern) began full of promise. In late October, I connected with a chef-restaurateur who let me use her kitchen in the mornings before her staff showed up, and we had plans to throw a big launch party, led by her PR team, for the latkes and my podcast.
But it was not to be. With Hanukkah coming just after Thanksgiving, we had too little time to make it happen. Still, I moved ahead from home, creating social media pages, designing a menu, creating an order form and taking other small steps to legitimize what one man I know understood to be “something you’re doing to keep busy.”
If I’m being honest, my part-time latke-making was more gratifying. Then, I’d wake up at dawn many mornings over a three-week period to prep and fry latkes before starting my full-time job. I donated every penny that came in, my own costs included. Sure, it was hard, but I had nothing to lose that I couldn’t afford to part with.
These days, I often feel like I’m drowning. After a joyful summer and fall where I learned to slow down and embrace time unfilled with busyness, I struggled mightily through the winter: self-doubt about my still-not-launched podcast, loneliness, money spent with little to “show for it,” my improved-but-still-persistent physical pain from latke-making.
So, was it worth it?
If this were a strict cost-benefit analysis of my latke venture, probably not. I grossed just over $1,000 more the year I went full-time versus how much I made when the latkes were part-time, working roughly double the amount of time. Omicron’s mid-December arrival didn’t help business. In the end, I fried 624 latkes—not including about 150 more made as holiday potluck offerings for family and friends, and the accompanying apple- and cranberry-sauce toppings. On the plus side, I have a good chunk of money to support my local community fridge, where I’ve been volunteering a lot lately. Surely there are ways to improve my business model. Maybe I will.
I still have an unwavering belief that leaving my job was right for me, despite the literal and figurative costs. Here are three key things I’ve learned over and again in the past six months:
Life changes take time! Maybe if I had a clearer idea of what I wanted to do in this next phase, I would be on a faster track to getting there. But leaving a formal job to explore and build new things can be slow going. The biggest skill I’ve developed thus far is patience.
Scary is not the same as hard. Confronting fear and taking a leap just because you know, deep down, it’s the right thing for you is different than doing the necessary hard, and often unpleasant, work involved in turning that scary thing into reality. No matter how passionate you are about something, there’s always going to be stuff you don’t want to do in service of that pursuit.
Keep moving forward. In a podcast episode on the topic of professional pivots, this was the No. 1 piece of advice career-changer Faye Penn offered. It has become my daily mantra. Whenever I feel stuck, I literally ask myself what I can do on that day, at that moment, to move myself ahead in some way, big or small.
My life is currently an unhinged triptych: confusing, daunting, but ultimately full of possibility and the beauty of discovery. I am actively exploring a number of paths. Not sure yet how it will all come together, but I am committed to putting in the work necessary to create the life I want to live.
Dori Fern is an accomplished writer, personal transitions coach, podcaster and professionally-trained home cook.
Three things to do
- Explore if starting a side hustle is right for you.
- Learn about the steps to starting a small business.
- Calculate how much it costs to start a small business.
