Taking the Leap: My 1st Month as an Entrepreneur
So I did it, I left my six figure salary at my full time job to be a blogger! Actually saying those words makes me want to vomit a bit not gonna lie but it also makes me extremely proud that I had the courage to do it. So here we are one month in and it has been an emotional roller coaster, below I’m sharing how I prepared financially and mentally, my Ah-ha moment at my full time job, and what I’ve learned so far. I hope this blog post is helpful and most importantly a realistic picture of what taking the leap looks like.
HOW DID I PREPARE FINANCIALLY
First let me say that the notion of leaving my job to pursue blogging full-time didn’t enter my mind until I was already making consistent money from brand collaborations. The first year that I blogged and didn’t monetize at all ( mainly because I didn’t know I could and that was with 20k followers on Instagram) , I just enjoyed sharing and that was enough for me. When brands starting reaching out and paying me I used that money as extra spending money and didn’t really keep track of how much I was making from blogging.
THEN my Ah-ha moment came at work ( which I will share below) and I decided it was time to get serious about this and set my self up for success. For the next 4 months I saved every brand check that I got, I saved my yearly bonus from my full time job, cashed in my stocks, and saved from each paycheck until I had enough money to pay my bills for the next 5 months (that’s if I didn’t make another dime blogging and without my fiance’s help, we split our bills a certain way and I didn’t want that to change). I decided to use some of the money to pay off my credit card debt which left me with a little over $20,000, this would be the only guaranteed money I would have since those bi-weekly checks would be stopping.
MY AH-HA MOMENT
Well there were many moments, and looking back it was like the universe was shaking up my world and forcing me to take action. If you didn’t know I worked for Target as a Store Manager/General Manager, I had 350 employees and my job was hard but like a good challenging hard. I worked for Target for 8 years and was fortunate to move up very quickly. I was an assistant manager/ETL at 3 stores and then ran 2 of my own stores and I was planning my next promotion which I was perfect for, after interviewing and passing I was told that I got the position and then a few weeks later I was told I wasn’t ready ( after my friends, family, and peers knew I got the position, not awkward at all) . This was the first ah-ha moment, I was in legit shock, on top of the embarrassment I wasn’t sure what this meant for my future.
Now before this moment and after there were several smaller things that shook up my world but I wasn’t a quitter and I planned on working at Target forevvaaa ( in my Cardi B voice) . I got a new boss who I was pretty sure hated me and wasn’t sure why people thought I was so good at my job, there were a ton of organizational changes and I was averaging 60 hour work weeks and not sleeping due to stress. And now we are headed into Black Friday, if you have ever worked in retail you know my life is about to get harder than it already is and I’m starting to wonder why I’m doing this and how much longer I can do it ( this is when the intense saving started, from January to April)
Well I made it to 2019 and the last ah-ha moment comes, it was small but thanks to @daynabolden ( she is a blogger, follow her if you don’t already) sharing her story I found myself in a space she spoke about before she left her job. One morning I was up at 4am like most mornings because I was too stressed to sleep and I had to check stats/reports on my phone first thing, I got dressed and went into work and I had this overwhelming feeling that I might quit sooner than I thought. My boss was coming to my store that day for a standard visit and I knew I couldn’t fake it another day, I was exhausted, frustrated, and at this point the money just wasn’t enough anymore. I broke down in my office and called my fiance to talk things through, he told me we would be fine and I needed to be happy. I then called my mentor to talk through how to go about leaving Target and when my boss arrived that afternoon I told him I would be leaving in a month and I was telling him out of consideration for my store team and my peers.
PREPARING FOR THIS
The decision had been made, I told my boss I was leaving and I have a month to prepare for my new life. I truly believe everything happens for a reason and exactly when its supposed to happen. I needed to be at this point in my career and have the work ethic I have now in order to make the leap and be successful. Knowing myself and how I operate I knew that I needed structure and a plan so I started doing a lot of research on entrepreneurship and the habits of successful entrepreneur. I listened to podcasts, read blog posts, watched YouTube videos, and joined webinars to learn as much as I could. I set goals for myself 30, 60, and 90 days out and then thought about what it would take for me to accomplish those goals. From there I created a routine for myself Monday-Friday and planned my content for the month to ensure I stayed on track.
So here we are, one month in and I’m still figuring things out but I am loving the process. Everything about this is new, it can be lonely at times but that’s an adjustment I’ve had to get used to. As I continue to learn I will share with you all, for now that’s all I have on this new life but if you have any questions feel free to drop them below and I will do my best to answer them. I am planning a YouTube video to go more in depth but I want to have a little more experience under my belt. Sharing this was hard and kind of like re-living it all but I know sharing my story is necessary and may be what someone needs to hear just like Dayna’s story helped me make my decision.