03/24/2026
Good read Jack!
Jackism – A Thought For Today:
NO EXIT PLAN
From time to time I get a little down and out about my career and my job and it gives me an opportunity to ponder and think. I think we can all relate.
When things are not going your way at work, it is real easy to start looking for the ledge to jump off out of frustration or wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else. We live in a world that makes quitting easy. New opportunity, better comp, fresh start. Just swipe and go. No friction, no roots, no staying power.
I have been there more than once in my 35 years in this business.
As I was thinking about that this morning, it took me back to something Misty and I decided early on in our marriage. Divorce was not an option. It was off the table. We are one for life. That decision changed everything because when friction showed up, and it does for all of us, we did not have the option to run. The only option was to work through it, to stay in it, to figure it out together knowing we are side by side until death do us part. And because of that, the best parts of our marriage came from the moments we could have pulled away but chose not to.
That hit me when I started thinking about our jobs.
What if you made that same kind of decision about where you work? What if you said this is where I am going to retire, this is where I am going to build, this is where I am going to finish. How would that change the way you show up on the hard days?
For me, it changes everything. It takes away the constant search for something better and replaces it with the responsibility to make something better. It shifts you from questioning to contributing, from frustration to ownership. If this is where you are going to plant your flag, then you have a role in making it work, not just pointing out what is broken but helping build what is right.
Because here is the truth we do not always want to hear. The grass is rarely greener, it is just different dirt. Every company has issues, every job has friction, every season has pressure. If you keep moving every time it gets hard, you never stay long enough to see what working through it produces. And that is where the good stuff is, not in the escape but in the build.
I have been married 31 years and Misty is the absolute love of my life. She is everything I never realized I truly needed. It did not come from perfection, it came from commitment. From staying when it would have been easier not to, from working through things when walking away was an option we refused to take.
Maybe your job has some blemishes right now, maybe it feels harder than it should, maybe you are looking over the ledge. But just maybe this place, this role, this season is exactly what you need to become who you are meant to be. You will not know if you keep leaving.
So here is my encouragement today. Take the exit off the table, lean into the work, build where you are and own your part in it. Because when quitting is no longer an option, progress becomes the only path, and that is where the fruit shows up.
Written by Jack Keeler
