Lessons in Entrepreneurship - Leaving Your 9 to 5
“How do you know when it’s time to take the leap?”
The other day I was asked to coffee to chat career advice with a young woman who was looking to make the jump into entrepreneurship. We had met through my work in BIDE so I gladly accepted the offer (clearly she knows coffee is the way to my heart 😊).
Since starting this business, the question I seem to get all the time is, “How did you know it was the right time to make the jump?” I’ve given this some serious thought over the past few months and since all of you want to know, here is my advice:
If you can’t let it go.
In my professional career, I’ve had a lot of crazy ideas. As my closest friends will tell you, I’ve always been one to think big and impulsively and they often were the ones that had to wrangle me in. Over the years, I’ve wanted to do a lot of things….there was the clothing boutique (for reasons I can’t explain, I was going to call it Pamplemousse…clearly it would have failed lol), the restaurant concept (thanks Dad😊), the food truck/juice bar, the nonprofit…the list goes on. But in all these ideas, I very quickly went from one to the next. None really spoke to me on a personal level so I kept thinking of new/different ideas that would fulfill me and that I was excel at.
When I was looking to move jobs, I looked a lot of places first. I remember having one late night phone conversation with a friend and I said, “but what if I go off on my own?” This particular friend was very nice and patient with me, kindly told me to chill out, to keep looking for a normal job and that eventually this is something to come back to. You can imagine the look on her face when I showed up for a weekend trip a few days later having made up my mind and I told her I was taking the leap. What can I say? I’m a Taurus. I’m stubborn like that.
Now, I know it’s not always this easy. For me, if you’ve read my story, you know I was also dealing with the aftermath of a pretty big trauma. I felt my days weren’t guaranteed and I needed to do something pretty big to feel more aligned with my personal values. But, regardless of your situation, the rule is the same. If there’s something that you keep going back to, something that keeps you up at night, something that scares the crap out of you and excites you at the same time, that’s the one.
Go after it, I promise you won’t regret it.
Xoxo, Morgan