My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I quit our jobs and spent 19 months travelling around Africa.
Upon our return we both "levelled-up" when we found new jobs.
For me, so much so that I was hired into a position I probably wasn't ready for.
I think the fact we'd had to face so much adversity in Africa, with no way to quit or give up - we were faced with situations which were literally figure out a solution or die - meant that we both developed incredible problem solving skills which our interviewers really valued.
We'd also been faced with an incredible number of corrupt police and border officials who were all trying to extract their pound of flesh. We developed really thick skins and were eventually quite adept at negotiating through the situation with our skins and wallets intact - again, very valuable skills in the workplace.
So the net effect was we had some incredible experiences, saw things we will likely never see again, and after all was said and done, came back into higher grade / better paying jobs than we would have if we'd stayed put!
To cap it all off, it just so happened that a large chunk of our trip coincided with the global financial crisis - so while friends of ours were getting laid off back home, we rolled on in our truck oblivious to the drama back home!
Upon our return we both "levelled-up" when we found new jobs.
For me, so much so that I was hired into a position I probably wasn't ready for.
I think the fact we'd had to face so much adversity in Africa, with no way to quit or give up - we were faced with situations which were literally figure out a solution or die - meant that we both developed incredible problem solving skills which our interviewers really valued.
We'd also been faced with an incredible number of corrupt police and border officials who were all trying to extract their pound of flesh. We developed really thick skins and were eventually quite adept at negotiating through the situation with our skins and wallets intact - again, very valuable skills in the workplace.
So the net effect was we had some incredible experiences, saw things we will likely never see again, and after all was said and done, came back into higher grade / better paying jobs than we would have if we'd stayed put!
To cap it all off, it just so happened that a large chunk of our trip coincided with the global financial crisis - so while friends of ours were getting laid off back home, we rolled on in our truck oblivious to the drama back home!
I did a small reddit write up on our trip here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_...