There are more of us than we think.

It’s a badge of honor to show up as a full-time business owner, but how many of us are actually working part or full-time to support our business-building?

I left my corporate career in marketing and advertising after a decade of moving from agency to agency, freelance to full-time, project to project. When I left, I felt like I had escaped with my life by the absolute skin of my teeth.

My aim at the time was to build my coaching business enough in the 6 months before my quit fund ran out that I would never have to take another corporate job again.

At the time of this writing, it’s three and a half years later, and I haven’t taken another corporate job—

But it absolutely isn’t because I achieved the goal above.

I have been grabbing part-time gigs in one way or another while building my coaching practice for as long as I have been a #CorporateEscapee. Many of them have been less-than-ideal, some have been short, fun distractions and at least one has been an absolute godsend.

When I stepped off the cliff and into the blank space of entrepreneurship, I was firmly under the impression that I had to be All In, and that being All In meant that I take an all-or-nothing approach to betting on myself and my business.

I had the skills.

I had the dream.

I had six months, a spot in an expensive mastermind and ✨the internet.✨

What more could a person need? How could this go wrong? Why bother thinking of a Plan B (or C? Or D-Z, for that matter?)

Five months after I took the plunge, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

My dad had a heart attack.

My marriage took a (blessedly temporary, but nonetheless excruciating) nosedive.

My bank account was the financial equivalent of an old raisin you find under the seat in your car.

That was just in 2020.

I was moving through the Plan Alphabet faster than I could even say my actual ABCs. And so, when I was offered the opportunity to help another small business owner with some copy and marketing, I took it with gratitude and a deep sigh of relief.

Later when another business acquaintance needed help in her online community, I agreed.

When someone else needed help with the voice and tone of their brand, I agreed again.

And when I signed my own clients, helping people on my own terms, I rejoiced.

But it constantly felt like I was failing.

Somehow, in making sure I was fully supported, that my bills were payed, that my business had space to grow into a clear and tangible vehicle for long term abundance that I could be proud of - I was failing.

I felt like a failure in telling my peers that I had a side gig, so I’d compensate by following up with my plans for business progress.

I felt like a failure in telling my non-entrepreneur family and friends that I had my own business and would compensate by following up with the “security” of my side gig.

It was an in-between space that I would not allow myself to accept, and in so doing, I made sure that I was not enough no matter where I was.

The concept of being All In that was pumped into my brain following my corporate exit, (a time when I was admittedly afraid and desperate for a silver bullet,) looked like:

• Being full-time in my business with complete disregard to my finances, (because I was “making it happen,” remember?)

• Being unable to see the disconnect between my current resources, knowledge, room for risk and the goals I was setting (AND ALSO spending my money on programs where no one else thought to check on this or guide me in doing it myself. File this one under H for “Hard Lessons I Had To Learn Even If I Didn’t Want To.”)

• Aspiring to a level of self-belief that bordered on delusion and kept my nervous system in constant high-alert, (the highs were steep, the lows were the pits and the soundtrack was always dramatic.)

• Marketing and selling my services to any and everyone I came into contact with, regardless of whether they were even close to my ideal client—because “everyone knows someone and you never know where you’re next client could come from!”

• Following business practices that were profitable for others, but turned out to be neither equitable nor profitable for me.

The upshot of all this was that I created a cobbled-together version of a business I didn’t enjoy that didn’t make me money and put me firmly in a state of self-loathing and not-enoughness.

The combination of desperation and not-enoughness basically led me to ignore what I needed, where my boundaries were and any sense of strategy or planning.

My non-logic was that because I was a Failure (with a capital F,) I deserved to be further punished by making sure that I was underpaid, disrespected, undervalued—

Further contributing to my identity as a Failure rather than just: a person who has momentarily failed.

It looked like:

• Being afraid to speak up or share my ideas or risk losing the job

• Feeling like I had to do whatever I was told without question or risk losing the job

• Charging a “competitive” (read: too low) rate or risk losing the job

• Deprioritizing my own business for someone else’s or risk losing the job

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the punishments I made sure to orchestrate for myself were direct reproductions of the kinds of trauma I sustained in corporate environments.

There was a piece of outdated programming still running in my head:

If I cannot successfully do one thing (a “secure” socially acceptable job) OR another thing (running my own business,) then I certainly don’t deserve to be ok doing both.

The binary thinking of either “this” or “that” was making me feel smaller, more disempowered and less capable by the day. My concept of my own self-worth plummeted.

In early 2022, a moment came where both my part-time gig and the mastermind I was in came to an end. I didn’t have it in me to find another job and I felt lost in my business, spiraling for a few months and wondering why I couldn’t quite get a handle on anything.

I hadn’t asked for the space, but I found that I needed it. Badly. I had lost my own sense of self-trust and the ability to use that trust to make my way rationally through whatever I was facing.

All In had brainwashed me and robbed me of my own ability to know what I needed or how to support my own creative process.

All In meant I only had three options: This, That or Failure.

It wasn’t until a few months later, about three years into “full-time” entrepreneurship, when I actively pursued a part-time position with a friend and fellow business owner that I realized: the magic in living the life I wanted lay in the compassionate understanding and acceptance of my own needs.

• I needed money to pay my bills and not overtax my growing business.

• I needed enough hours in a week for undisturbed work with clients and creating content while continuing to work about 6 hours a day in total for my own health and wellbeing.

• I needed to work for another small business owner far outside the realm of corporate.

• I needed to feel respected and valued by whoever I was working for, and I needed to respect and value them in return.

• I needed a part-time job NOT driven by inhuman deadlines and reactivity.

Within days of becoming clear on my needs and accepting that a part-time job would actually ultimately help me and my business thrive, I found the perfect position.

And not only was I clear and accepting about my own needs, I was honest and transparent with the person who hired me.

I communicated my needs and how I could help this employer get her own needs met without the roundabout overcompensation that my earlier sense of not-enoughness created in me.

I stated exactly where I was in my own business and what my goals were, my rates for the work she needed and how much time I could offer on a regular basis.

And so far, it’s been the absolute best employee experience of my life. It fuels both my life and my business in a way that is incredibly fulfilling and gives me hope for the future of business in general.

It seems so simple. And in a way, it is. But it didn’t come easily.

Unhealthy and unnecessary societal norms, misleading and harmful online entrepreneurship glam, my own internalization of these things and the decades of baggage they created -

I had to find a way to shuck it all off.

I had to find what worked for my life and what I needed in order to create my own definition of success.

My current reality dictates that I have an additional source of income on top of what I make in my business, and I am no longer ashamed to admit that. It’s a fact - a simple data point. It feels freeing to accept it as such. And my acceptance of that fact has actually allowed me to move further forward in my business in these last several months than I have in years.

Making sure I have the support I need in order to achieve my business goals is one of the best decisions I have made. That included me getting out of corporate, trusting and allowing myself to live my life however is right for me, and rethinking what a “source of income” looks like.

It meant taking apart the idea of All In and coming back to the ideas of commitment and dedication.

We don’t all have the privilege, the resources, the bandwidth or the ability to go full-time in our businesses within months of opening our doors—and that’s totally ok.

That doesn’t mean we’re not good at what we do. It doesn’t mean we can’t help our clients and customers. It doesn’t mean we’re not committed to a different future for ourselves. It most certainly doesn’t mean we’re failures.

I don’t really think it means much of anything - about us, our businesses, our potential for success.

It’s just the way it is right now.

Entrepreneurship takes dedication and risk, yes. It also takes planning, strategy, growth and experimentation. How can any of that occur when you’re in the position of being unable to support yourself financially, mentally, emotionally, physically?

You want a great story to tell later? By all means, leap without a net, etc.

You want a business that you care about and that your clients believe in? Find the kind of support you TRULY need. Think about what to do if Plan A doesn’t work out. Accept the reality of your current circumstances AND allow your future vision to lead you.

There is no “this” or “that” in the existence we are in. Binary thinking only creates harm in the messy in-between that is life. Don’t let it rob you of a beautiful one.

I almost did that, and I still feel like I’m paying the price. But I also feel like, in letting go of the control I though I was supposed to have, I now have a much more meaningful affect on the creation of my own future.

I’m proud of the business I’m building. I care deeply about the work I do for my clients and what I share for my audience. I let go of an unrealistic-for-me idea of what business “should” look like and I’ve never felt more purpose-driven or successful than I do now.

My hard-won lesson from all of this?

Know what you truly need in order to fully support your goals, and be open to actually receiving that support. Accept where you are AND remember that nothing is forever.

Forget “this” or “that” and allow your current reality and future vision to live simultaneously, together, in harmony, until they’re one in the same. It’s coming.

Coming soon: We’ll look at the idea of risk-management in building a business and hear from other business owners on working a day job and finding their own methods of support.