I quit my job at 54 to start a party boat business because I stopped feeling alive

• Jim Kukral, a cancer survivor, quit his sales job last month to feel alive again.
• He's launching a party boat business in Cleveland to bring people together for screen-free connection.
• This is the third installment of a four-part personal essay series, Quitting Without Regret.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jim Kukral, who resigned from his sales job in early October to start a party boat business called Cleveland Floaters at age 54. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been building my own brand by speaking and writing books for over 25 years, but I took a sales job at a coaching company in 2019 because I needed some stability, income-wise.

For four of those years, I was the top sales rep, and then for two and a half years, I was the director of sales. I actually liked the job, but I quit because I really just stopped feeling alive in it. I just said 'thanks very much,' and gave two weeks' notice. They were cool with it.

I recently beat cancer. I have everything. I'm not rich, but I've got a great family. I've had a really good life, but after COVID and the existentialism of beating cancer, I felt like I was slowly disappearing. I was tired of performing.

I'm guessing most people quit their jobs out of frustration, but for me, it was quitting out of hope. I'm hoping the joy isn't gone with humans. Maybe it's all just hiding under social media and phones and all that stuff.

I grew up in the '70s and '80s. Somewhere along the way, the last couple of years, we've started to do things like trade experiences for content. I feel like we've optimized ourselves into oblivion.

The thing that I'm building, and the reason that I want to build it, is to get real humans together, sweating on a boat, singing, dancing. We've got to reclaim what the screens stole from us.

The idea for my business, Cleveland Floaters, is to get people together to connect authentically and to exist fully in the moment. You have to have them put their phones in their pockets and put them in a room together — or in this case, on a boat — and entertain them. I think that's where things are moving.

I'm betting really heavily that over the next 20 to 30 years, we're going to see a real big push back to live experiences and human connection. I just really feel strongly about that, and that's what I want to champion.

We will start selling tickets for our first cruises in the spring. We're working really closely with Destination Cleveland, the Ohio Tourism powerhouse. It's very, very real. It's so real, it's kind of scary at this point. I haven't drained my 401(k) yet, but I'm about to start writing some checks.

This is all me. It is a private venture. It is really about creating something that makes people feel human again, and that's the journey I'm on, too. After 25 years of internet marketing and staring at a computer screen, I'd much rather bring together people on a boat.

It is going to be controlled chaos, so dancing deckhands, DJs, comedy, and improv. It will have a very Cleveland tone to it. We want to put Cleveland on the map. It's one of those flyover places. They fly over us and look down on us, but we're pretty awesome here. I want to build something that someone from Japan will get on a plane for and say I'm going to Cleveland, not New York.

Starting this business is extremely frightening. It's a ton of imposter syndrome because it is such a big swing out of my comfort zone. I have a lot of ups and downs. One minute, this is the greatest idea I've ever had, and then the next morning, this isn't going to work. I'm an idiot.

I think what stops most people from taking the leap is that they're scared of losing their income and insurance. But if I don't do it, I feel like I can't break free from this matrix of a world that we've created for ourselves.

My kids are grown. They're used to me being an entrepreneur, so they're like, "Great job, Dad, can't wait to see you pull it off!" My wife has a little more trepidation. It's our retirement at stake.

It's a tough time out there. Inflation's bad, people are scared, and not spending as much money. But I believe that people will spend money on experiences that bring humans together, and I'm going all in on that.