This content was created by Travia Steward. This content was uploaded by Travia Steward. This is a YouTube video titled "Why I Left My Job And Never Looked Back!" (created 2026-01-29T23:16:34Z). It contains a single-speaker motivational monologue in which the speaker recounts leaving a teaching career after feeling unfulfilled, describes breast cancer and the COVID years as catalysts to change, and explains the identity shift from teacher to entrepreneur/coach while encouraging viewers to pursue their potential and make different choices if needed.
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This is for anyone who is thinking that this is not as good as it gets, like this, your life, a relationship, a situation, it's just not as good as it gets. So I remember, I just want to share a quick story. I remember 5 years ago when I was contemplating leaving my teaching job, and honestly, it wasn't just in 2020. It was probably 5 years before that because I recognized that I was no longer feeling completely fulfilled. I was going through the motions. I felt like I could go to work and, and do the job blindfolded, like with my hands tied behind my back, all the things. And while I once loved teaching and, and all the impact and all the, the lives that I was changing, I recognized that all the things that I was asking my students to do, to grow and improve and really go out there and expand and fly, shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you'll land among the stars. I recognized that I wasn't doing that. I wasn't fulfilling my potential. I had gotten comfortable and I just felt like there was more. That I needed to be doing. And the constant reminder of, do I want to continue doing this for another 10, another 15, another 20 years or so? I knew that I wasn't exactly fulfilled anymore, but I still at that moment didn't honestly have the courage to quit before breast cancer. You see, breast cancer was the fire that said, 'You know, mortality is a thing. I don't know how much time that I'm gonna have. I don't know how serious this is.' And I felt like that was my wake-up call to like stop waiting for something to happen, stop waiting for these perfect conditions and situations to occur, for everything to line up so perfectly. So now it's the perfect time to leave and switch careers. I felt like cancer gave me that. I felt like COVID gave me that. All the things in 2020 lined up and happened for me because without those things, without the culmination of those things happening, I probably would not have done what I did. Now to say that where I am today as an entrepreneur, as, as, as building this business, I'm still building, you know, is it easy? No, it's totally not easy, but I would not go back. And redo that because I believe I'm growing and becoming stronger. And I'm, I mean, I'm getting closer every moment, every day to living into my potential. And so the identity crisis that I had during that time was I've always identified myself as a teacher. I've always identified myself as a mentor. Learning how to shift that and become the teacher, the mentor, the coach on the other side was a pivotal moment for me because I recognized that this was something that I needed and wanted to be able to do on a larger scale. So the point of this video, I want you to ask yourself if you have felt a whisper, if you've heard, you know, just felt like this isn't good as it— this isn't as good as it gets. This is— am I meant to do something more? Am I meant to do something bigger? Ask yourself those types of questions to figure out, you know, when the end of life comes for me, for you, for us, will you have lived the life that you were created to live? Will you have lived the life that you know you were capable of living? Would I have lived the life that I know that I'm capable of living? And something that I continue to remind myself of daily, it's never too late to make a different choice, that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be and life is happening for me. It's not too late. I'm not late to the party, and you're not either.
