How to Know When It’s Time to Leave the 9 to 5
How to Know When It’s Time to Leave the 9 to 5
Deciding to leave your 9 to 5 job and start your own business is often seen as a bold and exciting move. However, it can also be a confusing and overwhelming decision to make. When you’ve been at a job for a long time, it can be tough to tell whether you’re ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship. There are several factors to consider before you make your decision.
In this episode, Kenna and I are discussing how to know when to make that big decision to leave the 9 to 5 and start an entrepreneurial journey. We share our different perspectives of what gave us the confidence to take the leap.
In 2010, I made the bold decision to take the leap into entrepreneurship. At that time, I was a single mother of two children, without a safety net or a side hustle to fall back on. On the other hand, Kenna made the decision to start her own business only a year ago, after the birth of her second child. She had a valuable discussion with her husband before taking the leap, and she did have the benefit of a side hustle that she was truly passionate about.
Our perspectives have similarities as well as big differences- and we share those different perspectives, as well as provide tips and insights for anyone considering taking the leap into entrepreneurship.
Whether you’re thinking about starting your own business or just curious about the entrepreneurial journey, this podcast is for you. Keep in mind that success takes time and effort, but with persistence and determination, you can achieve your goals.
Chapters
11:43. The results of our poll on how you know it’s time to leave your 9 to 5
14:16. Tips on making extra money
16:10. Advice from Deanna- When it’s time to leave the 9 to 5
18:42. Can entrepreneurship be taught
21:29. Advice from Kenna- When it’s time to leave the 9 to 5
26:25. When it’s time to leave the 9 to 5- our checklist
27:25. Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
Follow Deanna and Kenna at:
https://www.instagram.com/goldenskyfilmsandphoto
https://www.instagram.com/carbonsilk.digital
https://www.instagram.com/deannahinsz
https://www.facebook.com/deannahinsz/
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Transcript
[00:00:21.550] – Kenna
Hey, everyone. Welcome to from nine to five to self-employed. I am Kenna Silvestri. I am a self-employed family photographer, and we are discussing today how you know when it’s time to leave your nine-to-five and start on your own journey of freedom. So I worked probably two years out of College. I worked in the meat industry on a research and development team, and then I transitioned into the wine industry, and I had a few different roles in the wine industry but ended up in sales. And while I loved both of my jobs, the first one I got laid off from, and then the second one is the one that I decided that I was going to finally leave and venture on my own. So a little bit of back story. I always did photography, probably for the last, I want to say, six or seven years. And just recently, I had a family of two little boys and I’m married as well. So the idea of a free schedule, a flexible schedule to do what I want, to be with my boys when they’re sick, when the nice weather hits, to just be outside was so enticing to me. So I really started to revamp my photography business, and I invested in my branding, I invested in my equipment, I invested in my client experience, and I was really just trying to make it work so I could leave my nine to five.
[00:01:55.700] – Kenna
And eventually that did happen. And one of the biggest things I think that made me leave my nine to five or ensured that it was time to leave my nine to five was making sure that my money was right so I could still help support my family. Although my husband supported the majority of our family, but I still wanted to have an income so our social life, of course, didn’t suffer too much. But ultimately, I don’t think it was ever going to be the perfect time for me. So I just had to take the leap of faith and do it and know that I was going to make it work. And, Deanna, I feel like you might have had a similar situation.
[00:02:39.070] – Deanna
I did. But before I share my story, was there one defining factor that made you say, Okay, I’m ready?
[00:02:51.470] – Kenna
Oh, man. Other than my boys continuously getting sick and it being so stressful, the thought of having to call off work, even though my boss was so cool. It’s still so annoying to have to say, Hey, I’ll be late because I’m waiting on a babysitter, or, Hey, I can’t leave my boys today. They can’t go to the babysitter, and neither of our parents are available to watch them, so I had to work from home. Okay. Other than that reason, I would say the support of my husband.
[00:03:26.560] – Deanna
That’s awesome.
[00:03:27.500] – Kenna
Once he finally had a sit down talk with me saying, listen, I’ll support us, I support you. Then I felt like this weight lifted off my shoulders that I could do it.
[00:03:38.090] – Deanna
Oh, wow. That’s really cool. And it is so different for everybody of what they go through. My situation, although similar, was also very different. I’ve shared this story so many times, but I was, and it was just me and the boys, and at the time they were 10 and 12. They’re now 23 and 25. I can’t believe that.
[00:04:08.060] – Kenna
They’re grown men.
[00:04:09.990] – Deanna
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it’s so crazy because there’s so many moments where it feels like that all just happened yesterday. And then there’s moments where it feels like this was a lifetime ago because so much has happened since then. But they were young and I was a divorced mom and working at a cell phone company in management. I loved my job. It was stressful. It was very intense. And there were some changes happening, which created a lot more stress. But during that time, it was the week before Christmas, and my youngest came up to me one day when I was off from work and said, he was so excited. And he was just like, mom, mom, I know what I want for Christmas. And as excited as he was, I was irritated because it was the week before Christmas, which is a very busy time in my job. So my job was stressful. I had finished all my Christmas shopping. I had no time whatsoever to go get him this gift of whatever he wanted. So he just created a lot more stress on me and really I was frustrated. I looked at him and in full irritation and just said, What do you want?
[00:05:34.220] – Deanna
In mom frustrated tone, What do you want? He said, The only thing I want is to spend one day with you sitting on the couch watching a movie and having hot cocoa like we used to.
[00:05:55.870] – Kenna
Did you cry?
[00:05:57.440] – Deanna
And yes, I feel like there’s something in the background. Do you hear that?
[00:06:01.160] – Kenna
No. Do you think it’s rubbing against my shirt?
[00:06:04.460] – Deanna
No, it was an app was playing in the background in my ear. So anyhow, a technical difficulty interrupting my story. I’m like, what is that noise?
[00:06:14.200] – Kenna
I know your face got hot. I was like…
[00:06:17.630] – Deanna
I’m like, where.
[00:06:18.840] – Kenna
Is it coming from?
[00:06:20.460] – Deanna
So anyhow, he told me that’s the only thing he wanted, and I instantly felt like the worst mom in the world. But I had no idea what he was talking about. So I called him and I called both of the boys into the room and they told me that they were really honest. And I’m sure at their age it was a hard conversation to have with your mom, but they just said they missed me and they don’t get to see me. That was all true. They said that I was missing school.
[00:06:47.520] – Kenna
If I remember correctly, you worked long hours, didn’t you?
[00:06:50.480] – Deanna
Very long hours. And Nona, my mom… Okay, so full disclosure, here’s another interruption. Kenna is my niece. So you may hear me refer to my mom, her grandmother as Nona. And she may at times call me aunt D instead of Diana, but that’s why. Because I’m not good at editing, so you’re stuck with all the bloopers. But my mom would watch the boys a lot for me. And living three doors down, it was really helpful. So it was really hard. And they told me I was missing school events and missing their baseball games. And I’m not sure what came over me, but I promised them at that moment that I would never miss anything again. And I didn’t. But prior to that, I explained to them how different our lives would look. I tried to explain to them, I made great money and we took vacations and they had the video games the day that they came out. We’d wait in line at midnight for it to come out and they would get it. So they had, in a sense, everything they wanted, but they would always say, we don’t care, we just want you.
[00:08:08.680] – Deanna
That’s when I made the decision to leave. I did not think it through as much as you did, and as much as probably most people should.
[00:08:18.690] – Kenna
Well, when you have such a strong emotional connection to your reasoning of leaving your nine to five. So I feel like while they might not have been the best thing to take the back burner on because that emotional reasoning was so strong there. I mean, it was your boys and you were a single mom, so it’s just you and them. That other stuff just took the back burner and you’re like, I’ll figure it out for them.
[00:08:48.570] – Deanna
That’s exactly what happened. And I don’t recommend anybody doing that. But I will tell you, honestly, everybody’s story is very different. Everybody’s situation is very different. I did not have a financial safety net, but seeing their faces, I was like, I don’t have a choice. This is my job as a mom, and I am not saying anything against moms who are working full time. I think that is amazing because I do work full time. But their faces said they are your priority and you need to put as much energy into them as you’re putting into your job because they are what matter to the most, not your job. Your job could get by without you. Your children can’t. So that was my motivation. The crazy thing, though, Kenna, was that I was so at peace with that decision. Now, there were times where I got scared to death, like, what did I just do?
[00:09:51.170] – Kenna
Yeah, I think we’ve all been there, too.
[00:09:53.510] – Deanna
Yeah. But at that moment, there was really a peace. I’m like, this is what I have to do. And I did look for another job initially that fit being a single mom. And let me just tell you, to find a job that had the hours of the flexibility and the pay at that time, and I don’t know what it’s like now, it just didn’t exist. I couldn’t find it. So I made the decision to create it, and that’s how I knew it was time to leave the nine to five.
[00:10:31.010] – Kenna
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, you said you wouldn’t recommend it. There’s definitely things that should be in place, I think. But that’s a cool story. Side note, I used to always tell my boss because I did not want to leave my job in the wine industry. I really did it. I loved them. I mean, you know I loved them.
[00:10:49.430] – Deanna
Great job there. Great opportunity. That’s a.Hard decision.
[00:10:54.140] – Kenna
Yeah. I moved within three positions in the company within the year I was there. But I used to always tell my coworkers and my boss, jobs need childcare. If jobs had childcare, so many more moms would work. If you could just pop downstairs at the daycare and take care of your kid real quick, that would be a dream.
[00:11:14.460] – Deanna
Yeah, I would agree with you. They really do need childcare. And I’m surprised. It’s probably hard because the wine company that you worked for was also still in that startup phase, although doing extremely well, still a startup. Financially, that would have to be tough to add something like that at that time.
[00:11:37.080] – Kenna
Definitely.
[00:11:38.270] – Deanna
I wonder, we did a poll, Kenna and I, and we asked other business owners, when did they know it was time to leave the nine to five? And the biggest thing that I heard from a lot of them is that they were forced to. And they said that either they were fired, which I think that’s like taking a negative and turning it into something positive, or COVID, the pandemic, made them shift.
[00:12:11.750] – Kenna
I think a lot of people.
[00:12:13.410] – Deanna
Yeah. And there was one person that commented, and I thought it was so cool because she was in behavioral therapy, which was face to face. And because of the pandemic, not able to meet anymore face to face. And I guess they probably weren’t able to do things virtually either based on her response. So she followed her passion project. Now I met her, she’s a DJ now, and she’s a great DJ. She has everything you would think of an amazing DJ would be. She is fun and just vibrant and full of energy. And I’m like, God, I can’t even picture her in the mirror because I’ve only known her as a DJ.
[00:12:58.280] – Deanna
But I think that’s so cool that people have followed their passion because they were forced. Either got fired or COVID. Covid made a lot of changes.
[00:13:11.220] – Kenna
Yeah. I think this day and age, too, it’s so much while it’s still hard to leave your nine to five, the fact that we have the Internet and social media and WiFi literally everywhere and our laptop computers that we could throw in our bag and bring. I mean, you could work from anywhere depending on what you do, of course, but there’s so many things that you could do outside of a nine to five that allows you to just work from anywhere. And we didn’t used to have that freedom. We didn’t used to have the technology to allow us to do that.
[00:13:48.000] – Deanna
You’re absolutely right. And I even noticed with you because you’re a photographer. So a photographer, in a sense, does build their business in a certain location. But I’ve noticed there were times where you were going out of state and you’re like, hey, I’m going to be here if anybody wants a family shoot.
[00:14:07.420] – Kenna
Yes, definitely. And now for any photographers listening, I’m sure you know, but so many photographers now are not only using affiliate links, so the equipment that we use, or I don’t know, so many other. Maybe if we bought PDFs from other people that have really helped our email campaigns or things like that, they’ll use affiliate links or they’ll create their own PDFs like, hey, this is my style guide. Buy it on my ETSY shop that I give my clients, or this is my welcome guide that I give all of my wedding clients that book me. Buy it on my ETSY shop. So while we do build our clientele in one certain area, photographers are venturing out into a lot of online digital products.
[00:14:55.150] – Deanna
And that’s so smart because it brings in another stream of revenue for them. That’s so important when you are starting your own nine to five or you’re starting your own business, you’re leaving the nine to five. It’s not just the business. The business you do have to get up. But once you get to that point of stability in that business, then you start thinking about, how can I monetize my expertise? How can I create another stream of revenue that’s passive income that even if I’m not taking pictures, even if I’m not designing a website, then there’s still people paying. And a lot of people are creating groups like subscription.
[00:15:40.970] – Kenna
Like coaching groups?
[00:15:42.290] – Deanna
Coaching groups, right. Or they’re creating different pieces of content that can be repurposed and sold and you can make it your own. There’s so many different things that you can do to help supplement that main income.
[00:15:58.030] – Kenna
Yeah. So let’s say we have someone listening that has a side hustle and it’s not exactly where they want it to be quite yet, but they just really want to leave their nine to five. What would be the advice that you would give them?
[00:16:13.850] – Deanna
That’s such a good question.
[00:16:15.760] – Kenna
Because.
[00:16:16.830] – Deanna
Everybody is different. I mean, somebody who has a family and children to take care of might get a different answer than someone just out of college who’s still living with their parents. Yeah, definitely. That’s really tough. But the first thing I would tell them is to listen to their gut. I feel like your gut knows. So if you’re thinking about it, if you can vision, picture actually doing it and you have this clear vision of you working your business and how things are going to work, and you know that your mindset is set up that there’s no plan B. I’m going to do this. I would say do it now. If you are married with children, a little bit different because that’s a conversation you need to have with your spouse. Finances are so important because, listen, all over social media, people are glamorizing starting your own business, and I love it. I’ve never looked back. I love what I’m doing. It’s hard. It’s not as easy as all these people, Oh, join my group and I’ll guarantee that you’re going to make X number of dollars every month. It sounds great. And then you read these testimonials, you’re like, Oh, if they could do it, I could do it.
[00:17:41.260] – Deanna
This is really cool. And we’ve all fallen into that. But we’ve all purchased those programs, and maybe you can. But this is hard work and it doesn’t come instantly. There’s no magic potion you can take. There’s no magic pill you can take. I feel like you do fall on your face several times in my days before you get to the point. So to answer your question, I would say your mindset has to be there. It’s not like a wishy washy. You’re like, I am going to do this. And you have to be able to actually picture what you want and know what you want to do and come up with a game plan. That would be my suggestion. But I’ll ask you something, aside from that, right? Because somebody asked me this question, I have a strong opinion about it, and I don’t know if we’re going to agree or not agree. When it comes to entrepreneurship, do you think it can be taught?
[00:18:44.060] – Kenna
Oh, geez. That’s such a hard question because there’s so many things that go into the business. But obviously, as an entrepreneur, the basis of that is one, thinking of the product or service that you want to sell, and two, actually selling it, and three, maintaining either those clients or new clientele. So you have to be either delivering good product or getting good reviews or not just like…
[00:19:10.560] – Deanna
I know it’s a hard question. I hit you.
[00:19:14.920] – Kenna
I don’t know. I have to say yes, but I have to spin off your last answer that your mindset has to be there. So if somebody is in an entrepreneurship college course and they are… If their mindset is not there, I don’t think they’re going to take it in the same way as somebody saying next to them who’s like, I have always dreamed of being my own boss. So I do think it can, but I think the person has to receive it has to be open to receiving it and implementing it. That’s a.
[00:19:49.570] – Deanna
Great answer. Do you.
[00:19:49.860] – Kenna
Think the opposite?
[00:19:50.970] – Deanna
I do think the opposite, but I think that your answer is great. I really like that. But I don’t think you can teach entrepreneurship. I think you can teach the skills of how to do things. But I think when it comes to having your own business, I believe there are two types of people and neither one is better or worse than the other. There are people who want to lead and carve their own path. And then there are people who want to be led and not have to worry about the stresses of carving your own path. But we need both in the world. We need both groups of people in the world.
[00:20:34.060] – Kenna
Absolutely.
[00:20:34.820] – Deanna
I’m not saying that the other one, just because it’s not what I am, is less than it’s great. I love when I go to a restaurant and somebody brings me my food. I could never do that. Hey, I’m clumsy. I would probably spill everything. But I think that drive is something… In our case, we were brought up around that. My parents had their own businesses. Your parents had their own businesses. So we saw it. We lived it. It became part of who we were.
[00:21:13.200] – Deanna
So I think that doesn’t make it as… It still makes it scary, but not as scary because we’ve seen success. So what do you think? What would you tell somebody? And going back to your question that you asked me, what would you tell someone if they were thinking about leaving the nine to five and starting their own business?
[00:21:34.720] – Kenna
One of the biggest things for me leaving my nine to five, a thing that I learned because I thought, okay, I don’t have proper client contracts in place. I don’t have a system where I could send invoices. All my stuff was just typed up on a Word document or a PDF contract that I created that they would just sign. Some of my finances were kept in Excel, and I was like, I don’t have QuickBooks or any of that stuff. I felt strongly that I needed that before I ventured out because I just felt like I had to have an organized system. That’s just how my brain works. But that stuff costs money. A CRM software to handle all that stuff for you costs money. I didn’t really have the money to throw at that. However, I did throw money at that. If I could go back, I would have simplified it. My advice would be it doesn’t have to be complicated to get you going. It really doesn’t. You don’t have to invest in that CRM to get your business going, but you will have to spend a little more time organizing it in Excel, in Word, maybe, depending on what your business is, in Adobe PDF.
[00:22:52.230] – Kenna
It will take you a little more time to manually do that on your own, but you can do it and you don’t have to throw all this extra money and stuff because it’s not necessary to get your business going. Start small. I mean, so many mentors that I’ve talked to about camera equipment because in the photography world, you could get so caught up in what this person is using. And they took this photograph with this lens, and those lenses are thousands of dollars. And you’re like, should I just put it on my credit card? But so many very successful mentors that I’ve had in the past, their advice to me was don’t get caught up in all of that stuff. So I would just say it doesn’t have to be complicated to get going. You don’t have to make yourself go broke to get going.
[00:23:38.310] – Deanna
That is such great advice because I remember when I started doing all this and everything I’m doing is online. I’m a digital strategist and I was social media. I was creating social media content for clients. This was before Canva too, by the way. These were the pre Canva days, if anybody can imagine what that was like. But there are so many different types of software that you could get that, again, not cheap and everything has an add on to it. But I agree with you. And it’s funny because when Canva came out, I was a little bit of a snob about it because I was like, I’m not using that because I’ve purchased this other software to create my graphics and do everything that I’m doing. And I spent a lot of time learning that software because I’m not a graphic designer. I spent a lot of time. So why would I use something that’s so easy for the general population? It must not be that good. Right? Boy, was I wrong?
[00:24:48.020] – Kenna
Well, another flashback to how we grew up, just working really hard.
[00:24:54.250] – Deanna
Yeah.
[00:24:55.820] – Kenna
Exactly. Maybe harder than we needed to sometimes.
[00:24:59.960] – Deanna
You know what? That’s so true because I felt like if you don’t put the time and energy into really learning something, and there is truth to that, then it’s not as good. But Canva really simplified a lot of things for me and for everybody. So it took me a while to get on board because I was a little bit of a snob. But it’s so true what you said about you don’t need to purchase everything and start small. I mean, be smart and be strategic about what you do need. And if you’re doing things online for social media, which your business needs to be on social media and video is a big deal, don’t feel like you have to go buy a new camera or a ring light, which everybody uses the ring light. And you can get really reasonable ring lights, but you can also use the sunshine outside if you’re not at that point. Yeah, I guess I get it in front of a window. Right. Stand in front of a window and use the natural light because that’s the best light to use. So don’t feel like, oh, I better go out and go buy a camera so I can do TikToks and whatever.
[00:26:13.650] – Deanna
Your phone is great. Your phone is amazing and you don’t need the ring light. You just need sun. So don’t get caught up in that. That’s a great point. I’m glad you said that.
[00:26:25.030] – Kenna
Yeah. So I think if we had someone else sitting here listening to this thinking like, how do I know when it’s time to leave my nine to five and we haven’t really hit a point yet, maybe we could just go through some of the points that we jotted down that maybe we just haven’t hit yet that didn’t apply to our situation or whatnot. So we obviously said, listen to your gut. And I think another big one we have on our list is failing isn’t an option. So like you said, that mindset has to be there because it is hard work. And then a positive support system. If you are married, if you are living with your parents, and let’s say even if you are living with your parents and you might have a card payment still or a cell phone payment or whatever, you have to have the support of your parents in case they need to back you up for one month or if you are married and your husband needs to support you for maybe three months until you get off the ground or whatever. Right. Yeah, I think that’s huge. And then go ahead.
[00:27:25.970] – Deanna
I was going to say where I think that’s so important, too, is because a lot of times when you make a big change like that and you decide to leave your nine to five and start a business, the people who love you most are sometimes your biggest critics. And I don’t believe that they do that to be negative or to hurt you. It’s that they love you and they don’t want you. They don’t want you to fail. They don’t want you. They’re sharing all the options and they’re painting a picture that has Have you thought about this? It’s coming from a place of love, right? When you’re starting out and you’re doing that, imposter syndrome is real. When you first take that step, things are not going to just come easily and naturally. You’ve got to work it. And imposter syndrome is when you start questioning, What am I even doing here? Do I even have the knowledge? Am I even qualified to tell people that I’m a digital marketing strategist, that I’m a photographer, that I’m a baker, whatever it is, you start questioning yourself. And if you don’t have those people around you that say, listen, snap out of it.
[00:28:43.080] – Deanna
You can do this. You know this. You are qualified. That stuff will just kill your mental state and you’ll start buying it. So having those people around, not just only for financial support, but more so is emotional because you are going to hit those moments where you’re just questioning, what did I just do?
[00:29:08.520] – Kenna
I know for me personally, before I would always take a big step like that, I would before I would take the step, I would have in my mind, of course, I could do this. These people could do this. Like you said, I could do this. The pool of people doing this really isn’t that big in the grand scheme of things. So I could become one of the top dogs. I could learn it. And then you make that leap and you get into it and imposter syndrome can easily take over. But you almost have to have your mindset keep shifting back to your original why. I think this is huge for you. You always say, what’s your why? And I think you have to just take your mindset and just keep shifting it back to that why and how you felt before you took the leap and just tell yourself, believe it to be true. Just keep trucking on.
[00:30:01.600] – Deanna
Absolutely. Another thing that we talked about is the willingness to do what it takes. I think that’s really important because we talk about freedom, Kenna, right? This is why we did it. We wanted freedom. We wanted freedom with our children, which is a big motivator for both of us.
[00:30:22.810] – Kenna
Then.
[00:30:23.230] – Deanna
We want financial freedom to be able to support ourselves. We want freedom, and that’s what I believe most people when they decide to do this, that’s what they’re looking for. But that doesn’t just happen. In the beginning, you’re working long hours. You’re working long hours. You’re not at that freedom point. You have a little bit because you can work those hours around your own schedule. But do you have the willingness to do what it takes, not just work your business, but to continue to educate yourself and just really know your craft, Excel in what you are doing and get that negative feedback, fall on your face and get back up. That’s hard to do. Are you willing to do that is to keep getting back up when you make a mistake, a big mistake. You’re like, oh, man, especially if it’s with a client. And I don’t know if you’ve experienced that yet or not.
[00:31:24.400] – Kenna
Definitely. But it’s.
[00:31:27.140] – Deanna
Like, oh, I remember early on and it can happen anytime, not just in the beginning. But I remember just really contracts not being clear, misunderstandings. And boy, did I took on a job bigger than what I could handle. because I was afraid to say no because I was afraid to say no, because I felt like I need this money. I’m going to do it. I’m going to figure it out. I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t there yet. I should have said no, but I didn’t because I’m like, I can figure it out. But I didn’t and it showed. And luckily, the client was really great about it. Prices were really cheap, so it wasn’t like… You do the right thing in the end. But that hit me hard because then imposter syndrome kicked in and it’s like, Okay, do you want to get back up? Or did you just fail? Is this not for you? And you need to do something else. So are you willing to do what it takes to make.
[00:32:33.160] – Kenna
It happen? I love what you said about educating yourself because that was a lesson learned for me because, like you said, we grew up around entrepreneurship and saw the success of it. And so while, like you said, it is still scary, I almost had that mindset of like, anybody could do this. Just get out, quit, start it, and people will come. And I didn’t invest in my education early on. And like you said, it showed for me personally. And I did have hard lessons with clients. So I feel like if somebody is listening and they’re wanting to leave their nine to five but don’t have that confidence yet, I feel education will give you that confidence. And you might still make mistakes when you get out. But if you educate yourself, at least while you’re sitting in that nine to five, you’ll feel so much more confident when it’s time to leave and you’ll be like, I know I could do this. I’ve practiced this. I’ve learned this. I can do this. Let’s go. And of course, continue educating yourself and learning from mistakes. But I just wanted to point out education is huge.
[00:33:42.630] – Deanna
It really is. And you know, it’s funny is when I was starting college, I was torn between business or psychology. And I chose psychology for two reasons. One is I was terrified to speak in public and I didn’t have to take a speaking class if I took psychology. But the second was that I had the same attitude you did. I was like, No, I grew up around business. What is the university going to teach me that I don’t already know? What I haven’t witnessed? I saw it in real life, but there’s so much I didn’t know. When I got into it, I was like, Man, I wish I would have taken some of those business courses. It probably would have made the ride a little bit smoother for me. And not just the business courses, but when we talk about education, it’s also your craft, your photography courses, me understanding SEO, Google ads, how to run ads in the ever changing social media world. There’s so much, but yeah, great point. You have to know that. Yeah.
[00:34:45.350] – Kenna
And all this to say back to my other point, too, is to not overcomplicate things, invest in the education that’s going to Excel your craft first, I would say. That way people will… Because social media is free. You could advertise your craft all day on social media. I don’t know if your advice would be the same, but I would say invest in education for your craft. And then once you get good at your craft and people see that, they’ll trust you. Then, of course, your business is just naturally going to get busier. You’ll naturally make more money, of course. Then that’s where you could then reinvest that money into, Okay, let me get some back end business organization going on and invest in a CRM or somebody to handle SEO for you or things like that. I want.
[00:35:36.670] – Deanna
To share a tip, too, about educating yourself because I know in the social media world, even early on, people would always say, how do you know all this stuff about social media? Because it would change all the time and it does change really fast. And SEO changes, Google changes all the time. And something that I recommend doing is sign up for those newsletters that bring you good information in your industry. I also set up Google Alerts. Now, I was following Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, but I would set up a Google Alert so that if they had an update, I got it in my inbox. I also did that with my name. So if my name is ever posted on the internet anywhere, I get a notification that it was shared somewhere. That’s cool.
[00:36:24.090] – Kenna
Very.
[00:36:24.620] – Deanna
Cool tips. Set up a Google Alert with your personal name and your business name so then you can see if it’s mentioned anywhere in the internet. And I was surprised a few times that somebody shared a blog post of mine somewhere else and it popped in. But anyhow, but every morning, whatever your routine is, or maybe it’s in the evening, read those newsletters. Don’t just skim them, but read and educate yourself and find out what’s new in your industry and what’s happening in your industry so you could stay on top of it. You could 10, 15 minutes a day just to read. Keep educating yourself is going to be so important. Any other final thoughts, Kenna, about what to do?
[00:37:10.600] – Kenna
Oh, man, the life of freedom is good. Once you’re there.
[00:37:15.760] – Deanna
Amen.
[00:37:16.530] – Kenna
It really is. While we do need all those people that work in nine to five, we need banks, we need a lot of businesses. There are people for that. And people might say, hey, I love my nine to five. I could get home when my kids get home. I have benefits. There’s, of course, perks to working in the nine to five or in a corporate role. But for those listening that want the life of freedom, while we are saying, hey, it takes a lot of work when the kids go to bed, you might have to work for two hours or more than that. Once you get there, the life of freedom is good. It is.
[00:37:58.570] – Deanna
What a great note to end that on. So we want to hear from you guys, too. How did you know when it was time to leave your nine to five to become self employed? Share it with us. We are looking for podcast guests to bring on and share their story. So we want to hear from you. How did you know? All right, guys, we will catch you next Monday at the same time. And listen to us on any streaming podcast channel that you listen to. We’ll be there. We’ll see you later.
