I Quit My Job to Go Full time Chess?! Part 4: The Road to Somewhere
This is Part 4 and continued from Part 3, but allow me to give a brief review. Basically, I quit my job to go full time chess (yes, I actually did this..lol), I discuss a tactic I like which is taking small steps towards even outlandish dreams to make them more real, and last entry I discussed how this built up to an opportunity. And now I'll continue! 
*ahem*
As it would have it, a friend of mine was hired full time by Progress With Chess, and he ended up asking me if I could do them a favor. I had met Roy at Parma Chess Club, so now my participation at that chess club was playing a role. He wanted some (slightly) hire rated opponents to come on Sundays and participate in the summer camp kids USCF rated tournaments. Some of the kids had reached 1200-1300, but had no 1400-1600 players to challenge them and see if they could do better (I was 1500 at the time) so my friend Mitchell and I both took him up on the offer! I was just happy to be involved in any capacity, and I eventually expressed an interest in teaching for them. I came a few Sundays that summer, when I could, and this lead to teaching a kid's chess class at Menlo Park Academy for a couple semesters, which is super enjoyable!
Menlo Park Academy, Cleveland, OH
I met with the director a couple of times as well, expressing my interest to get more involved and perhaps volunteer to write grants, or help with tournaments, or whatever really. The only issue was that teaching more would be the most concrete way to get more involved, and this is where my work schedule presented a hurdle. Classes were at 3:45 PM every weekday, but I worked until 5:00 PM every week day. So I had to get special permission just to teach the class on Fridays, and my boss was nice enough to allow it as long as I made up the time on the weekends, but doing that more than once a week would be difficult, especially because my job had become fairly demanding, and I would often work extra hours just to keep up with my workload.
Also, Progress With Chess had made it known to me that they were interested in creating a marketing type position for me, but there were a couple hurdles. One was that I made pretty decent money at my job and they likely wouldn't be able to match it, and two was that it would be difficult to create a full time position. So it felt very tempting, but it wouldn't be enough.. yet. I would need other sources of income to make it work somehow.
But it felt like this was leading somewhere. And how did this materialize in this way? Well interesting enough I had been participating in the Parma chess club (and Lakewood chess club too), which made me an active member in the chess community. I had a chess blog, chess twitter and chess YouTube channel, which really I only did for fun, but ended up demonstrating that I'm not too bad at promoting chess! And lastly, I had become involved with Progress With Chess, despite my packed work schedule, teaching and attending the summer camp tournaments.
What I love most about this, is that I didn't do these things with any big intentions in mind. I really did all of these things because I wanted to do them. It's really that simple. And I have found that when you do stuff you are passionate about, it never even feels like work, even if it is. You just do what you want and good things happen! That is how I obtained my real estate job of 20 years, and that is how I ended up in a position where I could actually leave that job and go full time chess (in theory at least; we'll see how this goes lol). It's crazy, but this is how it went down.
Still much more to share. I'm a talker in case you haven't noticed. I wonder if this will be a 20 part series. haha
To be continued!
-Stacia <3
Part I: I Quit My Job to go Fulltime Chess!?
Part 2: The Magic of Small Steps
Follow my adventure on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StaciaMelinda
Check out my YouTube Chess Channel
