I started my digital marketing agency when I was 46.
I was a life-long W2 before then—working for someone else, building their business.
It was fine until it wasn’t.
Time to go
I didn’t have a single client lined up when I gave 4 weeks’ notice at what I refer to as “my last job.”
And yet, there I was at midnight, 2 weeks before my first day of working for myself in Sept of 2019, printing out 3 contracts.
“It’s happening,” I thought.
It was happening. And the truth is, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never started a business before. I never worked for myself. I never had so much freedom and so much responsibility at the same time.
What I did have was 20 years (yes, only 20 years) of wanting to work for myself, and years of flirting with the idea of self-employment as a consultant during lunch breaks and after hours.
I had motivation, but now I have commitment. That made all the difference.
What’s the plan?
My ENTIRE business plan, and I kid you not, was: “I’m going to make this work.”
Now, Harvard Business Review is never going to write a case study on me and they shouldn’t. (But if they do, they can find my phone number on my website.) Either way, my “plan” (a loose term) worked.
In hindsight, I know I had a network of colleagues who supported me and a reputation for being good at what I did. Those were resources available to me as I was starting out.
I also worked with an executive coach for the first 4 months of launching my business, which helped a ton. He helped make my goals explicit and held me accountable to my commitment to building my business.
I wasn’t laid off, but …
Due to the disruption in the industry I was working in at the time at “my last job”, I found myself in a position of running a failing business at no fault of my own. We were losing revenue fast, and there was no way to get it back.
I did the math. I would need to lay myself off within 3 months. Instead, I quit and started a company.
By choice, chance, or by your former “family” laying you off—it doesn’t matter how you got to looking over the ledge, pondering the self-employment leap.
What matters is that now may be the perfect time to build the business you’ve always wanted to.
Here’s the thing. You will never know until you try.
How does that feel? Nervous? Good.
Now consider the aspects of your inner and outer world that can help support you:
- The external resources you can call on, such as your network and savings account.
- The internal resources you have to call upon including your skills, your resilience, and your perseverance.
I bet you have more support than you thought. Feeling better? Also, good.
Consider an executive coach
I worked with an executive coach when I started my marketing business.
It was so helpful to me that I became an executive coach myself. I now support fellow business owners as they take their first leap into self-employment.
If you are considering making the leap and want to explore how executive coaching can support you, reach out for a discovery call. Let’s explore together.
