What Traveling has to do with Entrepreneurship
Photo by Jake Wysocki (Every Day a New Adventure)
Last week, Noelle of Every Day a New Adventure stopped by TWICE to grace us with her world-traveling wisdom.
Catch up here if you missed it!
You might be thinking, what does this have ANYTHING to do with my boss lady life? Well, today, we’re breaking it down!
What World Travel Can Teach Us about Entrepreneurship
Photo by Jake Wysocki
Taking the leap is HARD (Security of a crappy job is easy)
You have a cozy job that pays you twice a month. You are comfortable. You say “Yes, ma’aam” or “No, Sir,” but in your head you’re complaining about all the shenanigans you go through at work. You’re not fulfilled, even if there are perks to your job. Being able to pay your rent, your car insurance and being able to have a stable job is pretty good. But you KNOW that there’s more to life than just punching a time clock. But even thinking about what you’d do other than having a 9-5 is scary. So you put that thought off for another month. Another 3 months. Another 6 months…
The Naysayers will be many
People aren’t going to get it. They are scared for you. For your safety and for the worst case scenario. They are scared that the comfort that you have now will be disrupted. They’ll also be scared for them; there might be changes that occur based on that decision you’re thinking of making. You’re about to “leave the herd” so to speak. You might leave that tribe and never come back. You might return worldly, with new experiences. You might enjoy a kind of life and success they can only imagine but can’t see for themselves. It’s easier to just say, “you shouldn’t do that,” and feel good about all the reasons that may deter you from making a BRAVE choice. It’s easier for them to put your choices and dreams down because it’s too scary to think of dreams they might want to have for themselves.
It’s worth trying
Those naysayers. The haters. The mean voices in your head. Yep, they might be right if you let them be. But isn’t your dream worth trying? It might be embarrassing to fail but is it possible that you might enjoy abundant success? Sure is! Anything worthwhile is going to be scary. Especially if you’re doing something outside the box. You’re testing the limit of yourself and your support system. If you are grounded in your reason for wanting to do something, it’s possible.
Here enters one of my favorite quotes
“Where there is a why there is a how” – Nietzsche
In normal English, if you know what you want to accomplish, you’ll figure the rest of it out.
You roll with the punches
Even in paradise, there are crappy days! (Don’t we know that from every season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette?) In the entrepreneur journey, you’re going to run into some bad situations. Maybe a client isn’t happy or your order got delayed. Perhaps a blog you wrote disappeared and you are late on a deadline. Those things happen. But as Elizabeth Gilbert says in her new book, Big Magic, as crude as it is, the journey is good enough that even on the crap days, it’s worth eating that shit sandwich that it comes with (if you haven’t gotten your paws on it, run over to Amazon to order it, STAT!). But you’re boss and you’ll figure it out as you go. Nobody has to have everything figured out at the beginning. You just have to be willing to ride that wave to figure out where it’ll take you.
You’ll learn a crap-ton about yourself (#adulting)
When you’re in a day job, you just execute on other people’s vision. When you’re your own boss, you learn to do a TON of stuff. You have to get out of bed and take a shower (even when you work from home). You have to learn how to do business financials. You have to be good at executing on client orders or business. You learn how to do your taxes or hire people who can do those things for you. You make BIG decisions about the health and wellness of yourself and of your business. If that’s not boss, I don’t know what is.
You create community wherever you are
When you’re traveling for an extended period of time in countries where you don’t speak the language, you have to come up with creative ways of connecting with people. It’s similar with entrepreneurship. You have to create community with people who get the creative and entrepreneurial lifestyles. I’ve heard SO many clients tell me that their partners and their group of besties really don’t get their needs and what they’re going through. It’s incredibly important to belong to a group of people who really get your career trajectory!
You don’t know anybody in your “Real Life” that does it
How many people in your real life (outside of FB, IG or Twitter) are their own bosses? I’m going to venture to guess not that many… How many people in your real life that your parents know are their own bosses? I’m guessing even fewer, right? Just because it’s infrequent in the real world don’t mean that it’s not an option. Like leaving a lucrative and stable job to travel the world, entrepreneur life might seem like a desolate and lonely decision. It’s okay to be the first one to start a movement. Once you’ve reached recognizable success, people will start wanting to “pick your brain” about jumping ship at their jobs.
WARNING: It MAY be the most fulfilling thing you’ve EVER DONE
Let’s be really candid here. Boss life is HARD. Boss life is full of roller coasters. My friend and mentor Emily Goodstein said to me “the highs are high and the lows are so much lower.” She meant that when you work for yourself, the extremes are exaggerated because we are part of the equation of success.
Although the journey can be hard as heck, it’s also possible that it can be the most fulfilling experience of your life. You might just fall in love with your work. You might just have days where you are on a CLOUD. There will be days when you do a happy dance for most of the day and think to yourself, “is this my LIFE?!” Yep. You chose it and it’s completely yours.
HOMEWORK (in the comments, tell me…)
If you can choose your future, what will you chose?
