Let’s say you decide to quit your job. The easy part is making the decision. The hard and crucial part is how you leave.

You’d better make sure all your ducks are in a row. Be professional, not an angry amateur hack. Invest time now for success and happiness later. Give proper notice. Tie up loose ends and commitments. Leave with dignity. This is where character stops being theoretical and becomes visible.

Walking away with integrity often means starting over. Rebuilding your business and work from scratch. Walking away from sunk costs – the time invested, the relationships cultivated, the position earned, and the income. These are real losses. Character is what keeps you from burning bridges.

Character is accumulated choices

We think of character as something we have, but it’s really something we build through thousands of small decisions. How you exit one situation becomes the foundation for what you build next. Each choice either reinforces or erodes the person you’re becoming. You’re not just leaving a job – you’re establishing a pattern that will follow you.

The reputation you can’t buy back

Cut corners on your way out, and you’ve damaged something that takes decades to build. The thoughtlessness of leaving commitments dangling, bad-mouthing on your exit, taking what isn’t yours – while still thinking you can work exactly as you did before? That’s delusion. Word travels faster than you do. Trust, once broken, doesn’t return just because you’ve moved on to your next opportunity. Industries are smaller than they appear. People remember.

Character and permission

Maybe character is about giving yourself permission to live by your actual values rather than others’ expectations. That takes courage, especially when your values run counter to what’s easy or immediately profitable. Walking away cleanly when you could extract more value? That’s character choosing long-term integrity over short-term gain.

The visibility question

Character shows up most clearly when no one’s watching, or when there’s a cost to living by your values. Anyone can be professional when it serves them. The test comes when professionalism costs you something – time, money, connections, advantage.

Character and aging

Here’s the good news for those of us who are vintage: character deepens with age. We shed the compromises we made earlier in life. We become more ourselves because we’ve learned that consistency across all contexts – living one way – is actually easier than maintaining multiple versions of who we are.

Your character isn’t what you claim in your values statement. It’s what you do before, during, and after you quit.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This matters too – Professionals.

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