Do What You Love – Michigan Man Quits Teaching Job, Becomes TikTok Star

We all know the phrase - you only live once. We all have dreams, the question is do we follow them, or not? More often than not, following a dream involves stepping out of your comfort zone, which may include leaving your job. That is a risk, most people are not willing to take. One Michigan man did just that, and fortunately, it did indeed pay off.

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Austin Fabinski of White Lake has quite an interesting story. According to his website, he graduated from Oakland University with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, with a K-12 Art Education certification. After graduating in 2015 Austin began teaching art to students of all ages. It may sound great, but that was not the case for Austin. According to WXYZ, his teaching salary was just not enough for Austin to live on.

In 2019, he quit his teaching job and started working as a server. Here is the kicker, he was making more money working in the restaurant industry than he was teaching. If you are a teacher, you may relate to this.

Fast forward to 2022, and a lot has changed for this talented Michigan artist. Austin continued to create art and thanks to a mentor, made his way on to TikTok. Austin shared his artwork on the popular social media app, and things really started to happen for him when he began getting into wood-burning art. To date, Austin has over 400 thousand followers and over 3 million people have liked his artwork. But that is not all, he has even written several books. Talk about inspiring!

I am certainly not recommending that you quit your day job to follow your dream, but maybe it's time to make more time to pursue that dream. 2022 may be the year to take that leap of faith.

You can see a few TikTok videos from Austin below, and be sure to check out his website - Austin Fabinski Art too. He creates much more than his popular wood-burning pieces. Congratualations Austin on all of your success.