The postman came. I walked down the stairs thinking it was a package I ordered.
He asked me to sign for a paper. Went upstairs, giggled with my wife that I got fired, before opening it.
Then I read the title. "Letter of termination."
The chair I was sitting on felt like having gooey legs.
October 2025. I got laid off.
Here is how it got to that point.
I am that type of human that thinks good of people. So when I started building something on the side, I shared it with my managers and colleagues. Had a lead position, was delivering results, and when people presented themselves as trustworthy and great colleagues, I fell for it.
My manager kept asking in 1:1s how the side thing was going, if I was earning something. The same people started following me on social media.
When the layoff came, I was out.
That was my safety income.
My wife was pregnant.
Rent, costs, everything running through my head at once.
We needed to downscale.
The side thing I had was making 3-6k per month. Before, that was going to savings. After, it became my salary.
More than I was making in the lead position.
More income, less hours, no useless meetings.
We moved somewhere smaller, for two reasons.
Costs, and having grandparents closer for help when the baby arrives.
Most of the pregnancy I was there. All of it. That did not happen by accident at all, happened because nobody owned my calendar anymore, happened because I didn't need to ask for permission.
12 April we went to the hospital because there were some issues with the kid's BPM.
13 April, more visits.
Before that, back and forth to other checkups for weeks.
And before all of that, in December, we went to London.
Without asking for someone's approval.
My wife loves Christmas and we decided to check what London has to offer.
Nobody approved it. Nobody needed to.
This is what going away from corporate gave me. For me, this is freedom.
Your freedom might look different, but at least you get to create it however you want it to look.
The freedom you get in corporate is just a fake image of being free.
And no, I'm not a guru telling you to quit.
Actually, don't, build something, use some spare time you have to build, if you have systems, the content creation side is very easy and you build traffic that you can drive wherever you want.
In the end this game is simple, you build an audience, you build a product for them based on what they ask you for, and then you send them to your product.