The first step in becoming a full time entrepreneur is to decide that that’s what you want to do. For those who have been employed in the corporate world for a number of years, the decision to leave to pursue your entrepreneurial passion can become one of the most emotionally stagnating and debilitating places to navigate. The difficulty in the decision to leave may be based on the presumed financial security of the 9 to 5; or the paralyzing reality that your dream my fail after all; either way, the path to peace about the decision to leave is usually won after some degree of internal dialogue with any number of fears that would argue a different idea. The peace to leave your job may only come after a fierce battle with your deepest and most stubborn of insecurities to do anything but.
When I chose to leave my job in the corporate world over 15 years ago, I too struggled. Unlike many who want to leave their full time day jobs, I was in my dream job and extremely happy. I did not want to leave, but felt obligated to leave as an act of spiritual obedience. I can’t say that I ever regretted giving up my corporate gig; but what I can say is that the corporate experience helped mold me as an entrepreneur and that I achieved more as an entrepreneur than I ever could have as a corporate employee.
The exit experience made me intimately familiar with the emotional wrestling that goes along with deciding to give up the corporate income, it allowed me the opportunity to overcome the fear and struggle of being a first generation entrepreneur, and it gave me the confidence to own my strengths and weaknesses while playing in the entrepreneurial game. Above all, it gave me the courage to handle the upsets, back-sets and resets of all the other issues that go along with not only deciding to leave, but also the decision to go back in when things didn’t work out like I thought.
It is my experience as a corporate employee, as an entrepreneur, and as a survivor of some of the harshest of adversities during and after my decision to leave that I am qualified to coach those who wholeheartedly decide that they no longer want to work in the corporate environment. I can definitely help you make the transition from corporate employee to entrepreneur!
…………….Oh yeah, I also wrote a book about it!