It's hard to believe but it's already been 6 months since I made the LinkedIn official announcement that I decided to leave the corporate world to hang my own shingle.
Time flies by as per usual, but I figured it made sense to take a step back and reflect on these first two quarters out on my own. Below is as real as it gets for me...although I promise I did dial back the self-deprecation and sarcasm while editing. No really, I did.
What I've Learned About Solopreneurship So Far
It's hard to whittle down 6 months of learnings so that I don't bore people to death, but here are my top 4:
1. Being a dreamer is a double-edge sword
Those who know me know that I'm a notoriously optimistic, big picture thinker. In many regards, you have to be in order to take on life as a solopreneur. Without that optimistic sometimes head-in-the-clouds mentality, entrepreneurship would be untenable due to just how hard it is. The downside of being a big picture thinker though is that because I love to dream big, I sometimes pay less attention than I should to what it takes to make those big ideas happen. Finding the balance between dreaming big and doing it has been a bit tricky for me.
2. Failing fast and pivoting has become second nature
I think the mantra of every entrepreneur is to fail quickly and then pivot. I used to hear similar sentiments when I was corporate side but most of the time when you fail on the corporate side there's usually a big fat cushion there to soften the blow. True entrepreneurship doesn't provide a cushion. And I think I've fallen on my a$$ so many times that it's six shades of purple at this point. Some of my failures have been really stupid -things I should know better by now- and some have been brutal to swallow, but were extremely valuable lessons.
Overall, the important part is that I am failing quickly, learning from it and then pivoting. And it's become so second nature that the blows don't hurt as much as they did at the beginning. So either I really am improving or I have become numb to the pain. My optimistic nature says it's the former.
3. Wearing every hat is overwhelming
Tied directly to number 1 above, I didn't necessarily comprehend the part where as a solopreneur you are, quite literally, every department:
Business development? That's on me.
Marketing Cruxology? Still me.
IT inexplicably goes to $hit? Me again (seriously, the number of calendar IT issues to this day are baffling).
Client communications? Me.
Invoicing? Me.
And that doesn't get into the marketing and branding services I am actually providing to clients. I was ready for that part, but the rest of it? Not so much. Wearing every hat is overwhelming and is something that I don't know that anyone can really prepare you for. It has stretched me more than I ever expected. But I'm also growing in ways I didn't know I could and that part is exciting.
4. It's the best decision I have made in a long time
When I first hung my shingle, I had a lot of apprehension around it. It's a huge leap to take and it's scary AF for so many reasons. But I honestly thought I'd really miss my corporate job - the security of it, the camaraderie with my colleagues, feeling like you contributed to the company in a positive way.
If I'm being honest, I don't miss it one bit. I miss some of the amazing people I've had the privilege to know and work with and the set paycheck was nice. But I'm getting to meet so many new amazing people and I am not working myself into the ground anymore. I'm healthy, I get to take a lunch hour every day, I'm not triple booked from sun up to sun down. And I'm getting to work on some really interesting things. Things I never would have been allowed to do while climbing that corporate ladder.
Conclusion
Look, this $hit is hard. I won't sugarcoat it and pretend like this journey so far as been easy because it hasn't. I don't expect that it will get easier any time soon either. There have been lots of expletives on super frustrating days followed by many, many tears. And I'm sure there will be many more to come. But I wouldn't change a thing.
Comments