5 Steps to Escape Corporate (Without Quitting Just Yet)
Now, let's talk about five steps to help you build your dream business without quitting your day job, because hello, we've got bills, wardrobes to maintain, and a full life to live.
By the end of today, you'll know how to use your time more wisely, prepare your finances, your ideas on real life human people, and more.
So let's dive in. So point one today is start, don't wait too long. The perfect moment doesn't exist, and we all know that in the corporate world, anything can happen.
There's a lot of perceived stability out there, but anything can happen and anything can change. So start preparing it now.
I used to over plan everything until I realized that I was stuck in planning mode and missing the doing part.
Once I started taking those baby steps, like. journaling or capturing my big ideas while on flights or after my family went to bed sitting down and thinking about what I needed to get moving or how I could secure time.
I find more time in my day to get some traction. I finally started gaining momentum. So I want you to pick one test today.
Maybe it's right down your big business idea or dream. Or schedule 15 minutes on your calendar just to think and start writing down your vision.
Or schedule a coffee chat to share your idea with a trusted friend or maybe a stranger. Just start. Do something today that sets you up for this.
Just start. It's that simple. So by the end of today I want you to do one small thing for your future self and business.
And then I want you to do it again tomorrow. mindset trap there and say, gosh, I just don't have any time.
Well, then I did one of my favorite tricks, which I ask a lot of my clients to do, which is just figure out how you're really spending your day.
So every time you do something, write it down. And I realized that consistently, free damn day, I was playing Candy Crush for about 45 minutes.
Those of you who are my friends on Candy Crush are like, man, how many lives is she gonna ask for today?
45 minutes a day. So I made a commitment to myself and on January 1st, I deleted Candy Crush from every device.
Did I mention 45 minutes a day? So now 45 minutes a day instead of, you know, getting that super heavy dopamine hit, I am now getting my dopamine hit in a different way.
I'm blocking time from brainstorming or to do research. I need to hire a new assistant to help with some social media things.
I actually managed to write and post a job posting for that. So at the end of every day, if you feel like, man, I just don't have any time to work with my business, I want you to stop and look at how you're spending your time.
I know at the day during the during the work day, those eight to 10 to 12 hours can be grueling.
You could be running from meeting to meeting and doing all the things. But what about when you're sitting on an airplane?
Or when you are driving from one meeting to the next, could you be listening to a podcast that's giving you some ideas and inspiration, or perhaps listening to an audiobook?
Find way that you can bake even short stints of 15 to 30 minutes every day on your calendar because if you don't, it won't be a priority and you'll keep pushing it off.
Give yourself time to think. Stop the social media scrolling. Stop the online shopping Which I know also great stress relief, but again, you could be using that time to really invest in your future.
So bake it into your calendar. management is key to success, whether you're building your career or you're building your corporate escape plan.
Number three, I want you to use this time while you're still working in your corporate job and planning for your future.
I want you to use this time to evaluate your finances. A financial right way can give you a wonderful peace of mind and you may not match your corporate salary the first year or three or four.
But you may not need to. Now is a really great time to figure out can you live on less?
Can you trim some expenses? Can you pay off some bills that are eating into your monthly budget? There's definitely opportunity in this space.
For me, before I. left my corporate job. I had a severe White House Black Market addiction. They're learning all about my addiction today.
kind of feel a little naked right now, but White House Black Market. Oh my gosh, my favorite store. I was actually there yesterday because it was the big end of your sale or a new year.
So I guess start of the year sale. And I had a budget and I had an amount and I had a couple things that I needed to get.
So I did a good job. But before that, when I was in my corporate job and I was thinking, you know, how much money do I need to live, I realized I was hitting VIP status by February of every year.
Now, if you know, you know, I'm not going to tell you what that is, but it's a lot. Cutting back didn't feel very fun.
But at the end of the day, cutting back allowed me to take repurpose that money to pay off other bills so that I could start building my runway.
So when you're thinking about that, you might laugh because you may not be a big shopper or whatever it is, but are there a lot of subscriptions you're paying for that you don't use?
Do you have a really high bill for maybe your cable service that you really don't want blood of those channels or maybe you don't need as much TV now that kids have moved out?
Could you maybe instead of spending $10,000 on a fabulous vacation this year, do a staycation, maybe get a nice Airbnb in the area where you don't have to fly and you don't have to spend much more money on all the things that are extravagant when we go on a big vacation.
Can you cut down on spa appointments or other fun things that you do every month or every quarter to just add more fun and such to your life, but they're not really needed because at the end of the day making that escape and having more fun in the future might be a little bit more of a priority right now.
So start thinking about that. And with every dollar you save, you're buying that runway. You could be again, paying down those bills.
Once you get to a spot where you feel really great with the way your finances are looking and you understand your monthly budget and it has come down because those bills are paid off, start funneling that money into a separate savings account for your business so that you don't have to charge yourself in debt up to your ears to get into coaching or purchasing tools or doing the other things that you're going to need once you are ready to start planning that escape even more seriously.
Which brings me to number four, which is talking to people about your idea. Sometimes there's a level of fear.
I didn't talk to a lot of people at work about what I was planning because I didn't want it to get back prematurely to anybody who might have made a judgment about it.
Now, full transparency. And see, I did have to talk to my boss about it once I got serious because a lot of companies have legal requirements in their handbook.
So if you were to take a second job or start a business, there's a whole conflict of interest and level check that has to be done.
That's when I really started talking to people at work. But before that, you wanna start talking to people about your ideas.
Talk to friends, family, strangers, people who you think may benefit from whatever product or service you plan to provide.
And start listening to them. Start getting their feedback, listening to their language, learning and locking down, what are their actual pain points?
I've learned the hard way a few times that what I thought were people's pain points, were not really their pain points at all.
Let them tell you, and then you can use that as you continue to build your business and grow. Now, you do need to be aware of the fact that there will be people who doubt you, or don't take you seriously.
They seem to check out, ask questions. Come at it with an open mind and be very curious. The beauty right now is if you haven't built your business, you're not completely married to it yet.
And even when you are married to it, you can make changes as you go and grow and learn. So ask questions, follow it with curiosity.
You may have a whole new vision opened up for you just from having these conversations. So take some time to talk to people and going back to that calendar bank in time.
mean, if you, I talk to strangers all the time, I don't get into a car with them, except for Ubers, but I definitely don't have that stranger danger thing.
an extrovert, I will walk into a coffee shop and just start talking to people. So do that. Start pushing yourself out there, because when you go into business for yourself, these people are going to take the role of your current business partners, your cross-functional team members who usually wait in and give you
that's some perspective and ideas, you need them to help you as you're building your foundation. And number five, seek guidance from someone who's been in your shoes.
A mentor or coach who truly understands the corporate escape and understands how you are as a corporate woman, heading into entrepreneurship is truly important and it's going to save you time, money and your sanity.
Trust me on this, we all have so many amazing things, skills, experiences that came from corporate. A lot of who we are and who we've become is because of those lessons.
They are things that will make you successful in some ways and some of those things are going to derail you and cause you to get in your own way.
An example of that is sometimes asking too many people for feedback or perspective before you do something or for feeling like you can't just make a change or a shift without getting 30 layers of approval.
There are going to be things that you do behaviors that you have or that you're really comfortable with that you're going to have to lean into and some you're going to have to let go of.
And I've seen women making the transition from corporate. I've done it myself. Well, we've dropped thousands of dollars, so much time and so much energy on people and courses that are misaligned.
So make sure when you talk to people, you're talking to a coach who has already walked a mile or 10 in your fabulous shoes.
Also, at this point in my business, I have a list of trusted advisors, resources, affiliates, tools, all the things.
So, if you need something, come ask me, what worked for you and why. I have spent money, I think I shared this in my last episode, sales was not my thing, still sales is not.
So, I don't do sales. build relationships and we have business meetings, because that's what works for me. But I worked with sales coaches who were so bro sales style, so force it down your throat, so take you deep into dark places like you can't survive without them, which by the way is a tactic of some coaches in the sales space.
It didn't align with me and I wasted a lot of money and a lot of time on that. So please, please, please be very, very careful.
Seek guidance from someone who has been in your shoes. If it's not me, find someone else who has also made that corporate escape after multiple decades, so that you can save your time, money, energy and sanity.
That tailored advice is priceless, so let us spare you the headaches as you're making your transition. So to recap the five points I wanted to share today, one, start now.
Two, schedule it, get that stuff on your calendar. It's not on your calendar, it's not a priority. Three, pay attention to your finances.
Start getting your finances straight now while there's still a solid and consistent paycheck coming in. Point four is talk to real live actual human beings who can give you perspective and feedback, opinions, thoughts and ideas.
And five, when you're ready to get help, get help from someone who's been there, someone who has walked in your shoes and can understand who you are and how you operate just based on years of corporate integration.
You can start building your business before quitting. You've got to be intentional. It may have to give a candy crush, but you absolutely can do it.
It's just a matter of making a few simple shifts. Now, earlier in the episode, I mentioned a special offer, and I want to bring it back out here for you.
If you're ready to define your vision, set realistic business goals, and get on the fast track to building your business at making your corporate escape, book a corporate escape strategy session with me.
It's $197. We will focus for 60 minutes on a Zoom call, and we're focused on jump-starting your path to success, literally making your corporate escape plan.
So the link to book will be in the show notes, and these spots will fill up quickly. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep this rate, but be sure to hop on it if this sounds like it's the right thing for you.
Now,
