I Never Want To Feel Like That...

I remember the moment I started working for myself so clearly.

It was mid-morning eight years ago.

My 7yo daughter & my partner had left the house for school & work already.

I lurched out of bed with a pain that was part headache, part heartache; searing hot but also exhausted & numb.

As I stood a hot mess on the balcony of our 2 bedroom apartment in my ragged grey robe, ugg boots & cold tea, I could hear the garbage trucks.

Then it hit me: “Even the garbage collectors have jobs”. ??

You see, 6 weeks earlier I had resigned from the job of my dreams - & that morning I woke up in freefall.

For some, unemployment could be a dream come true.

No deadlines! No commute! No boss!

For me? Unemployment was a time of paralysing anxiety and less-than-zero self worth.

It’s was a time when my comfort blanket of a zillion emails/Likes/meetings/coffees/lunches had been ripped away and replaced by a soul-chokingly empty inbox that reeked of failure.

A time when my barely caged Self-loathing and Dread suddenly discovered that Confidence and Discipline had bailed and the keys to the liquor cabinet were right there on the kitchen table.

I had worked my GUTS out at that job. I had found a smart + beautiful business mentor & I had betrothed myself to her.

Sure, the 90min bus-train-bus-walk commute was hard.

Sure, the fact I was the only one in the office who had a baby to drop off at 6am and pick up at 6pm was lonely.

But I had tried working for big corporates, local businesses & fancy media companies before. Nothing had fit, so this small Sydney start-up had to be the place for me, right? RIGHT?!?!? WRONG!!

One day a new manager started, & overnight everything changed.

It became like high school again.

Cliques. Agendas. Politics.

I can smell politics & bullying; it physically makes me sick to my stomach.

All my work. All my commute. It meant nothing to this new manager who waltzed in with an educational pedigree that cost more than I would make in a lifetime. I could feel myself in her firing line.

So I quit. On the spot. In devastation & despair.

Fast forward 6 weeks to my hot mess balcony moment.

I felt like a loser.

Have you ever felt like that?

Have you ever felt like everyone else fits in the world but you?

Then I remembered one thing my girlfriend had said, when I first became pregnant, sitting on the grass outside our office.

“We’re women,” she said so simply, “We have to make our own income.”

Her words stopped me in my tracks then, & have been ringing in my ears ever since.

We’re women.

We always have to know how to make our own income.

Looking back now I realise I wasn’t a loser.

I realise that I was just trying different ways to make an income.

I tried high-fashion. I tried boring banking. I tried a trendy start-up.

But turns out, the best way for me to make me own income?

FOLLOW MY OWN PATH.

That morning, I walked away from working for others, and I’ve never looked back.

So these are my questions for you:

• How do you feel where you are right now?
• Do you know how to make your own income?
• Do you have the tools & teachers you need to follow your own path?

So what exactly was the simple-but-huge mindset shift I made that morning that led me to the 6-figure business that I run today?

Find out in my next post…

Did anything in this message resonate with you? Hit COMMENT & let me know.