You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 61

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. The all inclusive podcast that teaches mindset and business tools. We'll help you rise as your authentic self. Be unshakable with your emotional freedom and unstoppable in achieving any goal and living your purpose. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. If you want to put your mental health first in life, relationships and business, you've come to the right place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Guide Available "How to Get Your Business Up & Running"

 

 Hey, before we get started, I wanted to let you know, I just created a new free guide and I put it on the front page of the My Freedom Grove website. This new free guide is called "How to get your business up and running" I share the three most important things you want to focus on when you're trying to put your mental health first while you're getting your business up and running.

Those three specific things are the one end-to-end process. So this includes everything. The sales, the marketing, the product, everything, what's that one process that will work for you.

What business plan would you want to use? That's going to actually create an income for you and then your schedule. What is the perfect schedule that's going to work for you and your life? In that guide I also share how you use The Clarity Steps to help you experiment and figure out all of the pieces for those three things: your one process, your plan and your schedule. The Clarity Steps always allows you to keep your journey clear, focused, and keeps you making traction. So go check it out. It's on the front page of the myfreedomgrove.com website.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My strong friends. Have I told you lately how much I love my job? It's true. I do. I love the company that I've created and I love the people that I get to work with.

I work with a variety of clients. Most are entrepreneurs. About half of them are working full time as entrepreneurs and the other half are still working their corporate or their teacher jobs while they're building their business on the side. They're all so much fun to work with. They're the reason why I created the guide that I just mentioned, because if I can find a way to help you make traction faster in what your goal is, then I'm going to try to help you out.

Start working with Coaches before you think of quitting

1. Life Coach (group membership or 1:1)

 

I started working with coaches before I left my corporate job too. Even before I knew that I wanted to start my own business. I've mentioned in the past that I started with Brooke Castillo. She has a group membership called self coaching scholars that provided all sorts of personal development. But I also got to observe her being a coach and seeing how does she do this. Because I was developing my coaching skills in the corporation. I already had all of the business stuff, but I needed to know the mindset part of it. So Brooke Castillo helped me with that.

2. Brand Coach

Once I decided that I wanted to become an entrepreneur, my very first one-on-one coach was with Melissa Bolton. So she is a brand therapist. She helps you to figure out who you are as a person and as a brand, how you want to show up in the world and your ideal customers. Who do you actually want to work with? Because you know, there's a lot of people in the world and there's going to be some that you really don't want to work with. So I love my job so much because I did all of the work with Melissa upfront to figure out who my ideal customer was going to be.

And now I get to work with them every day and it's, Oh my gosh, it's my pleasure to get to work with them. They're so great.

So one of the things that Melissa gave me was such a great gift. It was her time. So I know that a lot of coaches out in the industry will give you just an hour of their time a week. Melissa was able to customize a package for me, where we would spend two to three hours on a phone call each week. And that's exactly what I needed at the time. I had a lot of stuff going on at work, plus all of the, you know, what am I supposed to do with starting a new business? I don't know all of the pieces. So she was sharing so much with me. And that amount of time was, it was a gift. It really was.

So when I started up my business, I decided for my one-on-ones, I would also give that extended amount of time. So all of my one-on-one folks, they get the option of using as much as two hours per week for us to talk. And then we do in-between visit texting and stuff too.

And then I also do the group coaching program because I know when I first started, that investing in a one-on-one package was something that I wasn't quite ready to do. But I was ready to invest in group coaching. It gives us a smaller entry price to start with. So now I get to have all of that. I offer that to all of my clients and working with the best people out there.

It's so amazing to be able to create anything that you want in this world and help the exact people that you want to help. So that leads into today's topic. Should I quit my job and start a business? What a great topic. Right?

Get Some Inspiration

So at the beginning of the year, I saw all sorts of inspirational speeches coming out on Facebook. They're talking about everything that's possible. One Facebook group that popped up was called GrowthDay! So if you haven't checked it out, go check it out. It's a great place to go for inspiration. It has Brendon Burchard. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name, right. I think I always get a little hung up on it.

Anyway, very inspirational guy that helps a lot of entrepreneurs and people that are interested in personal growth. He's also teamed up with Jamie Kern Lima, and she's just phenomenal.

If you haven't heard about Jamie, I would highly encourage you to check her out. So she created her own makeup line starting on her own kitchen table. So I can't remember when she started it, but it was just one woman that wanted to make a difference in the world for women. And so she started learning how to make makeup and researching all of the ways that you do it, all the rules and stuff. And she ended up from her kitchen table, growing a huge company that she eventually sold for $1.2 billion to Loreal. I mean, that is just amazing.

So she now does a lot of inspirational speaking and I think she has a book coming out and she has, I think her own program too. Huge inspirational people. So anyway, in this GrowthDay! Facebook group, there's 43,000 people. That's a lot of people that are interested in personal growth and also starting businesses. And I go through and I look at the things that people are talking about and that tends to pop up quite a lot is should I quit my job and start a business? So I thought, why not do an episode on that?

Because I had that same question years back before I got started. When we're watching all of these inspirational talks, we get caught up in the excitement of the freedom that you can have by having your own business. By the unlimited income potential. And basically they make it look carefree.

So when it was originally presented to me, I was thinking, Oh my gosh, it's going to be a lot of work. I don't even know if I'd be able to do that, but it looked so good. The people seem so happy. And I was like, well, I want that. I want this full creative freedom. And then when I start talking with people, or I'm seeing things listed on Facebook in their comments, a lot of times people want to leave their jobs because they're just frustrated. They're very frustrated with their job. Or they think that it's a toxic environment or they're not feeling appreciated, or they're just working themselves to death.

And they're like, Hey, is this even worth it? So then they see the inspirational talks and they're like, Hey, that thing over there looks so much better than what I have going on right now. So then they start to wonder, should I do it? Should I quit my job and start up a business?

A Personal Growth Journey is Required

So, one thing I want to share is that either way, you're going to have a personal growth journey.

It is completely possible to stay in your job and absolutely love it no matter where you're starting off.

So all of those frustrations that you might be having or feeling overworked or under appreciated any of that, all of that is a personal growth opportunity because you can fall in love with your job. You can feel appreciated. You don't have to overwork, you can fit it all in and it can be an easy breezy life.

I know you're probably thinking Gretchen, you're crazy. You're not at my job. You don't know. But remember I worked in corporate world for 25 years. I went through all of this stress. I had the mini stroke. I had the work team dynamic issues. I had all of that. And then I had the personal growth journey and I found that, yeah, I could fall in love with my job.

It's also possible to go and start an entrepreneurial journey and think it's all going to be sunshine and roses and you get over there and you're miserable. But with a personal growth journey, you can make it a wonderful experience for yourself, either way.

A wonderful life is possible for you.

What is the Calalyst for the Journey?

You see, we face these big changes when we're either experiencing a great amount of discomfort in our current situation. And so then we're willing to do the personal growth because.

1. We want to get out of the discomfort.

2.There's something great and wonderful on the other side.

All of the effort is worth it to get there.

Sometimes that big change, you might think that the change is just an escape plan.

So let's say that you are having all of that discomfort and you think, Ooh, here's an escape route. I can just quit my job. I'm going to go do this thing. And all of a sudden I'm going to feel better. That's an escape route. That's not the personal growth journey.

And so when you do it as an escape route, what you're going to find is that you're taking all of that baggage along with you. And you're still going to find yourself not enjoying yourself. You're going to be pretty miserable. So when you realize that you're at this decision point and that the decision point is to go forward with personal growth. And at the top of that effort mountain, it's going to be this great life, no matter which direction you choose, then you're going to be willing to take it.

If you're looking for an escape route, you can stay right where you're at and you can take any escape you want. But it doesn't mean that you're actually going to feel the relief. It might be a temporary relief, but eventually all of it catches up with you. If you want freedom and feeling great and amazing, it involves that personal growth journey.

Start Learning About Possibilities

Back before I decided officially that I was going to start my own business, I was getting inspired by the podcast of Amy Porterfield. So if you haven't checked out her podcast, it's called "Online Marketing Made Easy." I highly encourage you to check it out.

She's going to tell you all of the different ways that you can market yourself and your own business. She also talks about how you can create your own digital courses as a way of making money. And this was so enlightening for me.

I had never considered making money by creating online courses. And everybody is good at something. There's an opportunity in you, no matter who you are, to create an online course. And then you'd have to figure out how you're going to market and sell that.

So I was getting caught up in a lot of the excitement because she had on guests that had done really well for themselves. They followed her programs to a T and they were making some big money.

I remember there was a teacher that came on there and she talked about an online course that she had created that was pre-made lesson plans that other teachers could use. And she made something like $266,000 from launching this one course for something that she was already doing. Like everybody in her field saw her as so good at creating lesson plans. And they were like, well, yeah, that I would be willing to pay for that. And so she found the right price and she delivered it in the right manner. And she found the audience that wanted it. And she made a lot of money. I was like, Oh my gosh, how cool would that be? So I got pretty inspired. And I thought, well, I could create some courses too.

Build Up Your Skillset

So I had that choice of if I wanted to get into Amy's program or not. She has a Digital Course Academy that teaches you how to make digital courses. But I already knew how to make courses. I was able to figure out how to do it on my own.

The marketing piece. Now that's not necessarily my strong suit. So when looking at, if you want to create a business of your own, you have to think about what are your different strengths? What are your different skill sets that you already have? And how can you repurpose that?

So my skill sets happened to be in business process and metrics and teaching in courses and facilitating. So I was able to repurpose a lot of that for creating this business. And then I had to face what are the things that are not my strengths? So marketing and sales were definitely not my strengths.

So when I decided, where was I going to invest my time and energy at learning things, I focused on those two things and started learning from the best gurus that I could find, and then spending a lot of time experimenting and trying to build up my skillset with that.

Other people might get pretty inspired by going and getting a massage somewhere. And they're there in the environment with the masseuse, who's giving them a really great massage,the soothing environment, the aroma therapy, the music, the lighting, all of it. And then when they realized that the masseuse is their own business owner, all of a sudden it opens up some possibilities. It's like, well, wait a minute. I want to have a life where I get to always be in a room like this and always have these nice smelling things and always having this great music that's possible too.

Look for Business Models All Around You

So I've known some people that have gone off to massage classes, massage school, and they've started their own businesses with that. There's still the business component of it too. Right?

So we have to focus on the skills of what it is that we're delivering for people, our products and our services, but also when you want to be an entrepreneur, whether you like it or not, you have to learn the business side of it. Otherwise, you're just going to be someone out there as a practitioner, and you're not going to know how to make money doing it or how to even get clients to you. And definitely not how to create processes that are sustainable for you.

-----------------------------------

I also got inspired by consultants. So when I was there working in the corporate environment, we'd have consultants that our company would pay huge amounts of money to. They'd come in and they do something and I'm watching them and I'm realizing I have their same exact skillset.

And yet I'm here as an employee. And of course I was getting paid a really good salary where I was at and the job that I was in. But I realized that these people were making like three to five times more than what I was making. And the service that they were providing was just a smidgen of the service that I could provide. So I was like, wait a minute, why am I not doing what they're doing? Like, this seems a little silly. So why would someone stay as an employee? Right. There's all sorts of inspiration. There's ideas out there.

-----------------------------------

Another thing that I saw that just blew my mind from an entrepreneurial type perspective were all of these YouTube artists. So I'm watching what my kids start watching. Right, 'cause they have it on. So I see it. And I'm like, why are you watching this?

They're watching other people playing video games. So there's this one called itsfunneh. And so she uses, I think, Roblox as a video game. So she and her siblings have created a whole brand for themselves and they play Roblox.

So basically they're creating a virtual environment with characters and then they spend 20 minutes playing this game and having like their own script that they're doing. So it's like a little mini movie or TV type thing. So, you know, it's like, we see things on TV, like movies or cartoons. And we know a lot of work goes into it. Well, these people, they found a way that they could use a software that already exists. This gaming environment.

They create their own shows and they put it on YouTube. And now they're making millions of dollars. So they're selling advertising on their channel because they've brought in a lot of viewers. People are really interested in these little shows that they've created.

So they have advertisers that want to pay them money to advertise on their YouTube channel. And they started to create merchandise. So t-shirts and little toys and stuff. And they're selling that. And I'm thinking really, because they found a software that they could create with their own hands, really easy? And then they just create these little storylines and they videotape it and they have their voices and stuff. And it became a business, a very viable, very successful business.

That's just to me, just blows my mind of what's possible out there.

Questions to Ask Yourself - Why would you stay an employee?

So when you're there as an employee, and you're asking, do I want to stay in my job or do I want to quit first, ask yourself:

Why would you want to stay as an employee? It's a really good question.

Why would you want to stay? When I was in biotech, there was a two word phrase that all of us would use when we're thinking about, should we quit the job or not? And it was golden handcuffs.

So the idea, meaning that they've made it so desirable, like all of the benefits that you get by being an employee. That it's so good, but it also feels like handcuffs. Like why would you leave? Because you have it so good.

Benefits

1. So we're getting paid really good salaries.

2. There was health insurance. And we all know, at least in the United States, how expensive health insurance can be.

3. They were offering 401k. So it's like you have this retirement plan. They might even, you know, for mine, they were investing some money on top of what I was investing. So it just kept growing.

4. There was that security of knowing I'd get a paycheck twice a month. And for me, I was a salaried employee. So I'd always know exactly how much it was. Guaranteed income, no matter what. I didn't have to go out hustle for it or anything. It always came in.

5. And then feeling accomplished. So I had been there for quite a while. I knew my job inside and out. I was an expert in what I was doing. I could go in there with highest amount of confidence. I could get in there, do something, have my achievement and feel on top of the world. So you're getting like that dopamine hit of, you know, that happy chemical in your brain that you're just getting achievement after achievement, after achievement. Yeah. All of that feels really good.

6. And then of course you have your routine, you know what your week looks like, you know, Monday through Friday. You know what time you're going to get up. You know that you're going to go, you're going to do this stuff and that you get off a certain time and you can plan the rest of your life around that.

Drawbacks

1. Of course, you know, there might be overtime, depends on your job. Depends on how you're thinking about your job too. Because I found I was doing a lot more overtime than what I really needed to do, but I didn't realize it once I was in it. They talked a lot about work-life integration because everybody that was a salaried employee started working around the clock. They said, well, you work for a global company. So of course, 24/7, you gotta be available. And if you're a dedicated employee with a really great work ethic, of course, you're going to be putting in whatever it takes.

2. Well, whatever it takes burns you out. And really when you start looking at the number of hours that you're putting in and you divide that by your salary, even if your salary started off really high, all of a sudden you start to realize if you're doing an hour per hour, you're not making as much as you think you are. It's quite eye-opening anyway.

So all of that stuff, the really good salary bonuses, insurance, 401k, all of that golden handcuffs. So it makes it really hard to want to leave because then you have to look at:

Questions to Ask Yourself - Why would you go?

What would you give up by leaving?

Drawbacks

And that starts to bring up some of the fears that you might have.

1. So money, of course, huge fear. If you are jumping from a full-time job into being an entrepreneur, you got to have some money, right? And as much as we'd love to just start making money from day one, it doesn't happen that way.

2. There's so much to have to learn. Like there's a big learning curve, a lot of different things.

3. There's a lot of the infrastructure that you have to put in, whether you have websites or ways that you would get payment.

4. Like just figuring out all of that marketing and sales...whole other can of worms. Like as an employee, most likely your job was not marketing or sales. If it was, you definitely have a leg up on a lot of the other entrepreneurs that are starting off without that.

So then you to ask yourself what becomes possible?

Benefits

If I do quit my job and go off and be an entrepreneur, right off the bat, you can think:

1. Unlimited income potential. When you're working as an employee, somewhere else, they're letting you know how much they can afford to pay you or how much they're willing to pay you. There might be raises that are built in. You might be lucky enough to work for a company that gives bonuses, but it's still their decision. How much money you make as an entrepreneur, you can decide how much money you want to make and then go out and figure out how to make it. It's unlimited. If you want to go and make millions of dollars, that's possible. You're going to have to get really creative and figure out how to make it happen. But it's possible.

2. It's also possible that you can just make a little bit more than what you already were making, or maybe you decide money's not all that important. I prefer to, you know, just work 20 hours a week and cover my basics around the house. That's okay, too.

As an entrepreneur, you get to choose all of that for yourself.

3. Having full creative freedom. Oh my gosh. This has been my favorite part. When you're working for someone else, you're limited by their business vision. You may have ideas for how to make a bigger impact in the world or new clients that you'd want to work with or new innovations or new ways of doing things. But if your current employer has a way that's been working for them for a long time, it's going to be a hard sell to convince them to do something different.

You might even have evidence from other industries to show. Hey, look, this industry is doing this unique combination of things. And this industry is doing this. That corporation that you work for, still is the deciding factor on what they want to do and what they don't want to do.

So for example, when I wanted to start doing business and mental health, that wasn't in the scope of what my current job description was. Sure. It said, coach, it's a business coach. It said cultural transformation coach. It didn't say anything in there about mental health. But I saw mental health as a very important thing in the world. A lot of people were suffering. They didn't have a whole lot of outlets for where to go. And their mental health definitely impacted job performance.

You know, if you're having a really bad day, your anxiety is sky high. You come in to work and a job that might usually take 30 minutes could take two or three hours. Well, if you can care about the person and take care of their mental health, you might be able to resolve that in 10 minutes, the employee gets to feel great. And all of a sudden they can go back to doing the task in 30 minutes, instead of three hours. It makes really good business sense. And as a human with a heart, it feels really good to help other humans. But if the business that you work for is like, Nope, we don't understand how that fits into our business model or how it can make our business better, or they're worried that that could open you up or open up the company to legal questions. Then you're not going to be able to have that creative license.

When you're an entrepreneur, you have full creative license. You get to do anything and everything that you want to. You pick your own scope.

Some of us are visionaries. We can see things that are coming on the horizon, new needs that our clients might have or needs that the whole population in the world is going to need. And we might start getting ready for it now and getting prepared and already have products and services. And then when all of a sudden that need rises, we're already there. We're ready, but that's the entrepreneurial spirit. We're always looking ahead, trying to anticipate what's next. What's needed next.

4. With that, you get to have full product innovation, service innovation, 

5. And you get to build in opportunity. Opportunity to develop yourself. Opportunity to develop other people.

6. You can contribute to an evolving world, If you want to.

All of those are those supercharged positive things that will fuel you to want to do the personal growth that's required with being an entrepreneur. It makes it all worth it.

What Personal Journey is possible as an Employee?

So what about the discomfort?

Remember we talked about that. If you're in enough discomfort that then you'll be ready to make that journey, make that personal growth journey, make that decision to just jump.

So what is some of that discomfort that you're having on the job? Could be stress. Might be pressure to fit into other people's expectations. Maybe you're stuck in the idea that you have to climb the ladder. So you're doing everything that is humanly possible for you to get a promotion.

You find that you're overworking just to prove that you're dedicated. Or that you have a great work ethic. Or that you're valuable for the company. And they should just hold on to you.

You might have all those team dynamic issues. That is huge. I've been in multiple forums where I see that all the time. That there's a toxic workplace.

So why would you stay in your job if you have all of that discomfort?

Well, it could go back to those golden handcuffs.

I mean, that's pretty compelling. A lot of people are looking at their bills and they're like, I got to pay these bills somehow. So having that guaranteed paycheck is really nice to be able to pay those bills.

What Personal Journey is possible as an Entrepreneur?

But there's more to it than that. Usually the discomfort is actually coming from the other side. We might be willing to sit in the discomfort of what is known. But there's that great, unknown jumping into entrepreneurship.

You don't really know you've done it before, or maybe you have, and it didn't work out so well.

Great Unknown. It's just darkness, right? It's like you have a blank slate to create anything you want. Well, that could be like standing there looking at the great dark abyss. You don't know what to do. So the fear of the unknown jumps in. The fear of the learning curve. The fear of failure. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, whole bunch of it jumps in.

So that might compel you to want to stay where you're at. That even though you're in discomfort, it's less discomfort than the discomfort of the other thing.

What Does it Take to Fall Back in Love with your Job?

Well, this can still be a great growth opportunity for you. I mentioned at the beginning that you can completely fall in love with your job. The people around you are going to be your best teachers. The most difficult people are going to be the best teachers in your life. They're going to help you discover all sorts of things about yourself.

Now, when you start off, you might start just blaming everybody and thinking that it's everybody else's fault, but really you can take this as a personal growth opportunity of looking, trying to decide what is it about that person that's making me feel this awful. That usually is showing where you can do your own personal growth.

Arena Practice

I'm sure by now you've heard of Brene Brown. So she talks about courage and vulnerability. And getting in the arena. So getting in the arenas: the idea of like a bullfighter. That they want to work on their skills and live life. So they're going to go and get in the arena, knowing that that bullcan knock them down. They can come back battered and bruised, but they've learned something. So when you're there working in this work environment, even though it's discomfort, you're in the arena.

You can be taking all of your personal growth teachings and applying them when you go back to work. Staying in your job means that you have an arena to practice in. So you can choose all of your favorite personal growth teachers. Take the things that you're learning from them. And then you go to your work and you're practicing. You're getting in the arena trying to see, can you evolve and grow?

I know you're like, no, this sucks, Gretchen, I don't want to do this. And you don't have to. It's always your choice.

Don't Take Things Personally - Love Feedback

But for me, I started off with Don Miguel Ruiz. He has a book called The Four Agreements. And that really was everything that I needed in order to start seeing the world differently and start my own personal growth journey.

One of the agreements he talks about is how to not take things personally.

So I started practicing with that and I got really good at it. It took quite a while, but that's how I learned how to see everything as processes.

So I talk in The Clarity Steps about how you have mindset obstacles and process obstacles. So when I could see a lot of life as a process with steps and requirements, that's how I was able to shift from taking things personal, to seeing things as just facts and figures. And let me tell you, that is so freeing when you can take anybody's feedback and input and know that it's just about a process, a step or a requirement. That it's not about you personally.

But I needed to be in the arena. I needed to have lots of opportunities. So working in a corporate environment gave me all those opportunities.

Make a Big Impact w/o Trying for a Promotion

If you want to be someone that makes a bigger impact, you can do that too. There's additional self-growth that you could do or there's business growth you can do.

When I wanted to make a bigger impact, I started learning lean six sigma. So this is a way of taking a lot of waste out of processes in our life, but mainly in business. And Six Sigma was a lot of the measuring and the statistics, which I never thought I would get into statistics. Definitely wasn't really my favorite parts, but it was a really great opportunity.

So in that position, when I first started going through that training, I didn't have a whole lot of opportunity. I was already at the glass ceiling, so it wasn't like I could get a promotion. But I wanted to grow my skillset, my ability, because I wanted to make a bigger impact. So I learned all of this stuff. And then I started pitching project ideas for ways that I could help the company in really big ways that would eventually help all of our patients.

Learn How to Influence Others

So that brought up the next thing, which was trying to influence people. Oh my gosh, trying to get anyone to say, Oh yeah, I'll invest, you know, half a million dollars in something so that we can, you know, yield $5 million later on. They don't always want to invest that money. It's not always their priority. So that's when I learned a lot from the book called the influencer by Joseph Grenny. Its G R E N N Y. Grinny never said his name before. I just thought about the book called the influencer. Anyway, this helped me to figure out all of the different ways that I could influence people.

So in the coaching world, we hear about "overcoming objections". Well, that's pretty much so what this book covered. Like all of the ways that people say no to you. Especially in business. And then what are all of the different ways that you helped to influence them so that they eventually say yes.

One of my favorite parts in there is using data to influence people. And so that has worked for me throughout my career. I can take any kind of data, show what the business value would be of doing something. And usually when you can put all the data out there, it's really hard for someone to say no, because it's right there, black and white it's facts, it's figures. It's not just a personal opinion. People want to do it.

Introduce New Concepts & Develop YOUR Material 

And then when I decided that I really was interested in the mental health, I wanted to learn a lot more. That's when I started learning about growth mindset, Carol Dweck has her book out there, all on growth mindset. I started to learn that inside and out and then trying to figure out, well, how could I incorporate that in my job?

And so I, luckily, because I had learned how to be so influential and I had learned how to put together a good business case. I was given the permission to start creating growth mindset type programs for my corporation. Now this is totally outside of my job scope. So I was still doing my job, but I was doing extra. And it wasn't because I was trying to get promoted. It was because I was trying to make a bigger impact on people's lives. I saw a lot of people that were suffering and I wanted to help them.

So it was possible to develop myself in place, but I needed an audience to practice on. I needed that arena to get in there and try it. So a lot of the things that I tried out are things that have shaped what I now use in my current business. But I was lucky enough that I had willing participants to try it. I happen to be earning a paycheck at the same time.

Now there's a fine balance. If this is something that you wanted to try, if you're currently working somewhere, and you're thinking about being an entrepreneur, at some point, you can experiment with things that you might later use as a product or service that you offer as an entrepreneur. But you want to consider all of the legal implications. So don't let them know all of your best stuff, or don't put it all together. Because then, since you're an employee, they might consider some of that as their property. Because they were paying you at the time. So make sure that you don't put too much out there. Try out little bits and pieces, but then once you have your whole thing together, make sure it's completely separate outside of the business.

 

Learn to Resolve a Toxic Relationship or Toxic Environment

So one of the final things that I faced while I was working, there was a toxic environment. And I don't really like that phrase toxic environment. I see people as people. People are usually in a lot of pain, a lot of anguish. As soon as I label them as toxic, all of a sudden, I just want to get away from them, right? It's like I see them as just poison everywhere.

So I started learning for my own wellbeing about psychological defense mechanisms. Because I thought, well, if all of the people around me are in pain, and I am in pain as a result of their pain and how they're acting, well, maybe I can understand this a little bit better.

So I started researching everything about psychological defense mechanisms, and then combining that with some of the growth mindset stuff, started doing things a little bit differently. I started showing up in a different way that I didn't think was how I should be showing up.

Right? One of the things that you don't want to do when you're an employee is show up totally vulnerable. But I knew that if I dissolved the shame on certain things, if I was the courageous one and was vulnerable first, then it made it a safer environment for someone else who had their defense mechanisms up.

So it took quite a lot of experimenting on my part and changing how my approach was. But all of a sudden the defense mechanisms all dropped and it wasn't just from me. Like it was like a domino effect. If I could cause one other person to drop their defense mechanisms, because I showed up vulnerable. All of a sudden that person learned from me, Oh, if I'm vulnerable with this other person, they'll drop their defense mechanisms. And so that would happen.

And then all of a sudden you'd have three people where we're all bonded and we're feeling great and safe. And then we start doing that with the next person and they drop their defense mechanisms. So instead of a whole lot of fighting, it's a whole lot of being vulnerable with each other and showing that we care.

And all of a sudden, all of that tension just dissolves a lot easier than you think that it would. But that all came from studying defense mechanisms. So that's why I put a whole course together and explained it because it was just pure magic. What happened.

 

Making Your Decision

So no matter what, your choices, whether you want to stay in a corporate job as an employee, or you want to go and be an entrepreneur, there's a personal journey that's going to be involved in any of that.

It's completely possible for you to fall in love with your job. Again, it's completely possible for you to create change in your work environment. That turns it into a wonderful place to be for you and for everybody else. It's a personal growth journey.

You can also choose to first do your growth there and then leap into entrepreneurship.

Because all of those skills that you're going to learn and develop, you can repurpose as an entrepreneur.

Or you can choose that you don't need to have that arena to do your personal growth.

It's also possible that you can choose to just make that leap, because maybe you don't need so many arena experiments.

You might be in a job where you know that you're going to have to do like a hundred different arena experiments in order to have your growth and in order to change your environment or change yourself. But if you go as an entrepreneur, it's like, yes, you know, there's going to be a personal growth journey there too. But maybe instead of a hundred arena experiments, maybe you only have 40.

It all depends on what are the things that you need to grow with.

You don't have to suffer.

You don't have to make it harder than it needs to be.

You can have that personal growth anywhere that you choose. You could even choose a different job for the meantime, if you want to, while you're building up your business.

I'm glad that I did the personal growth that I did and made the decision when I did. Because there was still more arena experiments that I could do. But I chose that I would rather go and do that as an entrepreneur, because then I had all of the benefits too.

Being Your Own Boss

One last thing that I'll bring up is just about your boss. We all love our bosses, right? So when you're working as an employee, you already know who your boss is. Maybe you have a couple of them. Maybe there's supervisors and managers, and you know, owners of the company. When you're an entrepreneur, you still have a boss. In fact, you have two Of them.

You are your own boss. So what kind of boss will you be for yourself?

Because when you were an employee, it was so easy to just complain about your boss and how your boss was. When you're a business owner, your boss is you. And how you treat you, like you can blame yourself. But you're also the one that can influence that boss the best.

So I know that my boss can be quite driven and ambitious and maybe bite off too much at one time. So I have to manage my boss. I have to remind her of how to treat their employees nice. Just a one little funny thing.

So your second boss is your customers. So you need your customers to want to purchase your products and your services. So you need to pay attention to what they have to say too. So if you start trying to blame your customers, that they're all wrong, then they're probably not going to want to be your customers anymore.

But the businesses that are really listening to what their customers need and incorporating that feedback into their products and their service, the delivery of all of that, they're going to create something that their customers absolutely love. And they're going to be in business for life.

So if one of your compelling reasons for why you want to leave your job is because you don't like your boss or you don't like the reviews that you're getting. Know that none of that goes away. As you're an entrepreneur, you're going to need to learn how to love feedback.

Like really, really love it. Like crave it. Because you need all of that so that you know exactly what to create for your customers so that they actually want to buy what you're offering.

So I'm just going to plug Don Miguel Ruiz, his book, again. The Four Agreements focuses in on how to not take things personally. And of course I teach people how to do all of that too.

So through my Emotional Freedom course that I offer in the Unshakable programs or as an add on to my one-on-ones. And we also look at all of the experiments. So if there is feedback, come bring that to me. As in a coaching session. We will work through all of it until you can find how not to take it personal. That you see it as just a process, a step or requirement. Or we do some of the mindset work, a little combination of both.

So that after awhile, you just absolutely love feedback. Because I want you to have that emotional freedom in life to be super happy.

And if you are running a business, I want to see your business be successful.

So I am there for you on all of those fronts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU DECIDE

So in summary, if you're thinking about quitting your job, ask yourself a couple of questions. Should you quit your job and start a business. Start with your why's.

1. Why would you want to?

1a. What discomfort do you want to escape?

1b. What benefit do you want? What do you see on the other side ff you do quit?

2. Why would you not want to quit?

2a. What benefit do you get?

2b. What discomfort are you avoiding?

If you don't quit and become an entrepreneur, there's a personal journey for either of your decisions, whether you stay an employee or you start your entrepreneurial job.

A wonderful, enjoyable life is possible for either of those decisions. But which one is worth it the most to you?

Alright my strong friends. A whole lot to think about. A whole lot to get inspired. Go check out that GrowthDay! Facebook group. It's pretty inspiring in there.

And if you have any questions on how to start your journey, reach out to me for a free consult call. You can go to my website myfreedomgrove.com. Go to the contact me tab, and that will have a way to set up a consult. And make sure that you grab that new free guide. It's located on the front page of the, myfreedomgrove website."How to Get Your Business Up and Running." Alright. Have a wonderful week. I will talk to you soon. Bye bye.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove podcast. I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out unshakable men and unshakable women. The unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, the coaching and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to myfreedomgrove.com/work with me. I can't wait to see you there.