Do you think it’s time to fire your boss? I know that sounds a little crazy, but hear me out on this. It’s not what you think. I really believe there are all of these super fancy success stories of people who just did it. They just decided one day they were going to cash in their life savings and open that store or get their business off the ground. That’s actually not what I did. And let me tell you why.
I did Marie Forleo’s B-School, and there were people in there with overnight success stories. They were able to launch a business and just crush it out the gate. And I had tried that. I had absolutely tried that. So I quit my job when we moved from Houston to Austin in 2011. This was my time to just do it.
I decided I was going to do personal training and nutrition, and nothing was going to stop me. But it was SO stressful. I can’t even tell you. I remember sitting there just adding everything up and realizing this was not going to work. There’s no way we could even make rent, but somehow God filled in the gaps, and we got through it. Even though we made it to the other side, I was in such a place of fear and desperation that I was pushing away the exact thing that I wanted to happen.
I’m a huge, huge fan of Marie Forleo, but when I went through B-School, and there were all these success stories, something didn’t feel right. Don’t get me wrong, it’s her job for marketing to tell the wins. I do the same thing, but I remember sitting there feeling that it wasn’t me. Maybe that can’t happen for me.
There was this woman, and I knew she cashed in her life savings or invested everything she had to open a little health shop. Her business was in a little town where I worked, I would go in there, and there would be nobody. I think she limped along for about a year until she had to close it down and lose everything. So that really sat with me. At this point, I have been listening to Dave Ramsey for a year straight, and he just kept saying, “No, that’s not a good plan.” I was like, then how in the heck am I going to quit this job? Because in order for me to have the time to grow the empire, I can’t be working full-time at a job. Then the next thing he said really stuck with me. He said to micro-test your idea first before you quit.
That was something I could totally do! I could commit to micro-testing, which is basically a side hustle. That really opened my eyes and ears to be able to look at this whole thing differently. If I am going to micro-test, then I need to test out the model and see if it is going to work. I was getting my network marketing going, and it was a couple of thousand dollars a month. But that wasn’t enough for me to quit my job. I was not growing at the pace that I was going to be able to quit. So I decided to micro-test business coaching, and this was before I launched the Goal Digger brand. I did a paid workshop to micro-test the idea, and people responded they liked it.
I micro-tested a six-week boot camp, and people responded really well. So I trucked along, and it took 90 days. I got to the point where I was averaging about $10,000, and maybe a little bit higher sometimes, but I still had my full-time job. I remember going, “I need to quit my job since this is taking off.” But I hesitated. I decided I would wait because what if this was a fluke?
As the months went by, the growth was still happening. It was inching up and up. I waited three months, and I ended up tripling my income from my corporate job. That is when I turned to Scott and decided I was ready to go part-time with my current job. That didn’t last very long because the income kept coming in, and it was time to move on.
At that point, it is just security. It is just a safety net, and you are too afraid to trust yourself that you can do it. I don’t think people should quit their jobs and go after their dreams until they’ve micro-tested their plan. If you are ready to help people, how are you going to do it? That’s where the marketing and business plan comes into play. You have to know what you are doing to be successful.
The thing that helped me is that I realized I was not going to be there forever. It was so hard to go in at times because I just did not like it. I don’t like to use the word hate. I hated my job. Honestly, there was a bully there. It was just awful. I think Bob Proctor said one time, “I want you to imagine you’ve lost that job. You’ve been looking for six months, and you can’t find a job. You have no income, and the bills are piling up. The mortgage needs to be paid, and there’s no money coming in. Now how does that job look?”
What he said helped me so much. I stayed in gratitude and was thankful for the experience knowing that I was going to be so appreciative of being an entrepreneur. Being able to be my own boss, and if there are bullies out there again, I can choose not to be around them.
If you are in a situation where you’re dreading the workdays, be thankful and come from a place of gratitude, knowing it is just a stepping stone. You’re not going to be there forever. Then micro-test your idea. Make sure you’re seeing the people around you who are scaling successfully. You have the plan, the roadmap, and it is doable.
Micro-test your plan and watch your dream start, Goal Diggers!
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