Episode #7: My story, I never worked a 9-5 job, here’s how it worked for me
I have never worked a real 9-5 job. Ever. I went straight from university to running my own business. I don’t have anything against more traditional jobs, but I always knew I wanted to work for myself, and that I wouldn’t necessarily make the best employee, especially for the beginning years of most careers. It was so important to me to be able to set my own schedule, choose who I worked with, get to work from anywhere, and choose the work I got to do on any given day. Now, this is not a traditional path. In school, no guidance counselor ever hands you a brochure and says ‘have you considered being an entrepreneur?’. Nobody says, well yes, you could work for a tech company, or have you considered creating something that that tech company needs instead? Running your own business is not a path for everybody, but I’m pretty sure it’s an available option for way more people than we realize when it’s time to graduate and start your careers. I know so many people who work a job they hate, or work a bunch of odd jobs for years, not knowing what they want to do because none of the traditional options appeals to them, and nobody says ‘hey, you know with an idea and some hard work, you can actually make up a job for yourself?’. So many people suffer through work in their 20’s, 30’s, even 40’s when they may have been better suited to becoming an entrepreneur.
I’m not telling you to quit your job and start a business, I just wanted to create a basic lesson to educate people that entrepreneurship is an option, and maybe one that will be a really good fit for you or someone you know. So, today I’m going to tell you my entrepreneurship story so far. I’m still only in my 20’s, arguably at the very beginning of my career years, but I thought I would share my experience with anyone who’s thinking that maybe self employed life is the life for them, as well as sharing four questions to ask yourself to decide if maybe this is the right path for you.
I love being an entrepreneur, and I wish that entrepreneurship was viewed as a real job option and presented to young people in job fairs, guidance offices, career counseling, and even post secondary education degrees. It’s crazy that I didn’t even know what the word entrepreneur meant until I was 16. Up until then I thought things like, do I want to become a doctor? Maybe being a lawyer would be a good choice? How about teaching, can I handle kids all day? The closest I came to understanding the concept was ‘inventor’ or ‘explorer’ and that’s what I wanted to do. I know so few people who started a business young, simply because nobody really made it clear that it was an option, and a pretty good one.
So, if you’re not happy at your job, or always felt you were cut out for something else but you’re not sure what, or you’re bored day in and day out doing tasks for other people, then maybe, just maybe, this episode is for you, and could serve as the first step in your education about entrepreneurship.
4 questions to ask yourself before starting your own business
Now, before you get all excited and decide you’re going to quit your job just because you don’t always like it, I have four serious questions to ask yourself to start thinking about whether or not this is the right path for you. And before you go off saying I recommend this or that, I need you to promise me that you’re actually going to consider these questions, and decide whether or not entrepreneurship is something you should go for.
Question 1: Do you have a business idea?
It’s not enough just to want to work for yourself because you don’t want to work where you are right now. You have to have something that you want to do, something you want to create and build and obsess about for years.
If your immediate answer is, ‘sigh, no, I don’t have a business idea’. Don’t stop yet! If the idea of being an entrepreneur excites you, then it’s worth exploring further, and it’s time to start looking for that idea, just maybe hold on to your day job while you do this.
My first business was running a small farm. I started this business before I had even graduated university because I thought it would be a good seasonal job to gain experience and life skills while I was still a student. I shut that one down after two laborious summers where I learned that I loved the business and ideas portion of the business, but manual labor was not for me. My second business, the one that I started when I first graduated, was a wedding photography company, and that one took off because I picked something that logically I figured would work out. Naturally the wedding photography business created a platform where I could launch my third business from, The Georgian Bay Print Shop which I’m still slowly working on growing and developing, and finally after spending so many years learning about business I was situated to launch this, the business I was excited about starting for years, that would hopefully do something good for the world and help people learn and grow, the How To Adult School.
Before all this though, before I finished school, all I knew was that I wanted to work for myself, and I had a notebook dedicated to business ideas. I filled pages with ideas that were crap, ideas that were great, ideas that just weren’t the right timing, or that cost a but tonne more money than I had, and I kept at it until I settled on the right idea. That notebook ranged from ‘create a better organic granola bar’, to ‘run an educational sea kayaking company’, to ‘launch a new travel rewards point system’, to ‘make sustainable ped beds that don’t suck’. The reason why I’m telling you all this is to encourage you to start looking for the right idea if this is what you want to do, and to not give up until you find it.
Look for areas in life that rub. Things you wish were better, things that make you think ‘I could do that better’ or ‘here’s how this person could make this better’. Look at things that interest you, areas where you already have some experience or more knowledge than the average person, things that get you excited and make you start talking incessantly about then when you imagine yourself there. Just start looking and start writing things down. You’ll find something.
Question 2: Are you self motivated?
Being an entrepreneur is a hard path to take, and it takes endless amounts of work, energy, and so much pivoting and creativity. It is not the ‘easy’ path to take, and you have to be able or willing to learn how to manage yourself and your time really well. Yes, you can choose to take Tuesdays off, but that probably means you’re going to work Saturday instead. Yes, you don’t have to answer to a bad manager, but you’ll have to be more disciplined on yourself than almost any manager you’ve ever met. My running joke through the first couple years of my business was ‘yeah, my boss is a jerk’, she’s gotten better and more forgiving now, but I had to make myself work my butt off for years to get going.
Look at yourself and your habits honestly. Do you prefer having someone tell you what needs to get done, or do you like to figure it out on your own? Are you constantly seeing better ways to do things and then doing that? Are you maybe not always motivated at work, but you put your head down and gettr’ done when there are things that you want to do?
If you know you can get things done on your own, then you can definitely manage your own business. Just remember, when you start a business, only a tiny fraction of your time is actually spent doing the part of it that you want to do. You have to spend tonnes of time doing your accounting, marketing, refining your client experience, running social media, managing a website, packing and shipping orders. Eventually you can hire people and outsource the parts that you don’t like, but you have to have the motivation to get them done on your own at the beginning too. One of my favourite sayings is ‘entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week, to avoid working the 40 hour week’. This shouldn’t always be true, it will get better and you’ll have more time and freedom than everyone else, but at the beginning, you need to work for it.
Question 3: Do you have an entrepreneurial network that will support you? If not, are you willing to find one?
If you’re going to start your own business, you need to find people who understand the ups and downs of it. People who you can share resources and advice with, who you can work alongside when your work gets a bit lonely, and who will be in your corner to celebrate your successes and talk you off the ledge when things don’t go as you expected.
Maybe you’re crazy lucky, like me, and have family and partners who support you in this. Maybe you have friends who run their own businesses and are willing to help. If not though, you absolutely have to be willing to go out and find a network of entrepreneurs who will become your people. Being an entrepreneur can not be an antisocial approach to working, where you live in your phone and on social media. You need people to talk to, bounce ideas around with, vent with, and learn from.
Every city and town has entrepreneurs, and many of them have network groups, co-working spaces, or industry events that you have to start taking part in right from the get go.
Personally, a large number of my friends run their own businesses. These are just the people who I’m drawn to because we understand each other's work lives. I joined industry groups that hold events, and meet ups that I go to, I joined a mastermind that gets together every week for a call to discuss our work, and I found so many entrepreneurs who were willing to teach and guide me through things I needed to learn, and in turn I try to do the same.
Question 4: Are you financially secure enough to start your own business?
To be clear, I do not advocate quitting your job, buying a bus, and becoming a travel writer overnight just because you liked the sound of the freedom. If the answer to this questions is no right now, that doesn’t mean you can’t still start your business in the future, or as a side hustle while you maintain your 9-5, then come home to work your 5-9.
I got to jump into starting my own business right away because I was so lucky to not have any student debt, my living costs were so low, and I also had practically no financial responsibilities at that stage, so it wasn’t a big risk for me to decide to give it a try for a year. I briefly entertained the idea of getting another job while I started, but knew that I could hustle together at least minimum wage working on my own in the first year, and personally decided that I would rather work every crappy photo job that came my way instead of getting another job.
Not many people get so crazy lucky to start with though, and usually you’ll have more financial responsibilities than I did by the time you decide you want to start a business. That is a.okay, if you’re not rolling in a trust fund, and have car maintenance bills stacked up on your credit card, you might just have to start your entrepreneurial career as a side hustle, which is also a great way to go.
So many people run their small businesses for years while they’re working a full time job or more. I have friends who worked on their business on evenings and weekends for years before taking the leap and going full time. So, even if you can’t dive in head first right now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get started on your path. Don’t let finances be an excuse if this is your path, if anything, starting a side hustle should start to bring more money into your life. If this is where you’re at right now I actually have another great episode of the show, episode #3, for anyone who is interested in starting a business called ‘tips to starting a business when you have no money’ that walks you through ways you can bootstrap your business idea from the get go.
If you’ve listened this far and know that being an entrepreneur is the missing puzzle piece in deciding on your career path, then I know you will be able to find the time and the money to start working on it. Even in teeny tiny increments. The true and honest to goodness fact is that to be an entrepreneur, the only thing you need to get started is the drive to DO something. To take action. One little, tiny action at a time that will build you towards the business of your dreams. Being an entrepreneur means being a doer, not a dreamer. Taking the things you fantasize about and figuring out how to turn them into a reality by putting one foot in front of the other. It doesn’t take motivation, or inspiration, it takes dedication to sit down to your work every day regardless of if you’re feeling motivated or not.
Linked Resources
The careers section of the resource library is a great place to find more information about starting your own business!
The book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert is a must-read for anyone wanting to work in a creative field.
The free guide to finding and applying for grants I’ve created is a must-have for anyone wanting to start their own business! I’ve won multiple grants for my various businesses and it’s a great start-up option to find funding!
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