[via Seth Godin]

Wow, again a great post from Seth about the right timing for living your job.

[…] Doug needs to leave for a very simple reason. He’s been branded. Everyone at the company has an expectation of who Doug is and what he can do. Working your way up from the mailroom sounds sexy, but in fact, it’s entirely unlikely. Doug has hit a plateau. He’s not going to be challenged, pushed or promoted to president. Doug, regardless of what he could actually accomplish, has stopped evolving — at least in the eyes of the people who matter.

If he leaves and joins another company, he gets to reinvent himself. No one in the new company will remember young Doug from 10 years ago. No, they’ll treat Doug as the new Doug, the Doug with endless upside and little past. […]

Our parents and grandparents believed you should stay at a job for five years, 10 years or even your whole life. But in a world where companies come and go — where they grow from nothing to the Fortune 500 and then disappear, all in a few years — that’s just not possible.

Here’s the deal, and here’s what I told Doug: The time to look for a new job is when you don’t need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable. Go. Switch. Challenge yourself; get yourself a raise and a promotion. You owe it to your career and your skills.