Since I started this entrepreneurship and self employment journey over 13 years ago now, lots of people have told me that they admire me for taking the big step, setting up my own shop and keeping it going for so long, and through a pandemic, and so on.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate hearing that.
I love hearing that. My ego feels very stroked every time someone repeats a variation of that.
But.
I have to set the record straight and be honest about my journey.
For me, it didn’t actually involve courage at all.
When I took this step (and here you can read the story of how I decided to quit my government job to pursue my dreams), I was in my early twenties, I had no home loan, no dependents, few commitments, no enormous monthly expenses.
I was still living very much like a student, and I had almost no lifestyle creep.
Failure for me would have meant that if my business doesn’t take off, I burn through my savings, and in a few months time would have to go back to the job market, hat in hand and suitably humbled.
My perceived risk was essentially zero.
Some actual risk was present, sure, but the potential hurt wasn’t enormous. And, so far as I could see, the potential upside HUGELY outweighed any potential downside.
I actually remember saying this to my understandably concerned mum when I told her I’d quit my government job:
“So what mum? If it fails, I can say I tried for a few months and it didn’t work, and I go and interview for another position elsewhere – it’s not like jobs needing my skills are disappearing tomorrow, is it?”
So, no, for me, it didn’t take much courage at all.
I am the kind of person who doesn’t know what they want – I ONLY KNOW WHAT I DON’T WANT.
And after working a few jobs, I knew that I DIDN’T WANT ANOTHER JOB, that I never wanted to work in government ever again, and I never wanted another boss.
It truly was that simple for me.
Working in government was a soul sucking experience for me, as I described briefly in previous posts, and which I’ll dissect further in future posts.
Meaning, there was no great loss from quitting a job I hated.
And, I always hated having bosses, who were invariably men with less knowledge than I in the area, (not being arrogant here, that’s exactly what specialists are for, remember, to *specialise*), and who got to decide what my day gets spent on, what my focus should be, how my career trajectory goes, and how much money I make.
So, I quit, and essentially swapped having one boss for twenty clients instead. That’s its own can of worms, and we’ll open it one day, but for now, you can read about the client I fired. Twice.
For today, I just want to say this – I think it’s important we make it clear that you don’t have to be some colossus of courage to take a step you want to take, but you do need to be well prepared.
As to how to get prepared and what you actually need – I’m making that list and will share it soon.
