Written by: Samantha Touchais, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I am a 22-year veteran of the corporate world. I left my full-time, six-figure paying job at the beginning of 2016. I left for a number of personal reasons, and it was a time in my life where I had to put my family first.
I took a major step back and reviewed all the possibilities, and after much deliberation, I decided to start my own business.
I was not a total rookie when it came to entrepreneurial life. Throughout university, I worked in the family business and learned an awful lot about working for myself. I learned so much, in fact, that I decided never to go into business for myself! So what made me change my mind and decide to take the plunge? Life is all about choices. Life is never static, and while we may feel stuck, there are always ways to move forward. I evaluated the experience I had had in the family business, and I realized that I was affected by the mindset of others. The first thing I did was decide what I was passionate enough about to put my heart and soul into. I am not necessarily a big believer in turning a hobby into a business, as quite often, all you end up with is the loss of a hobby that once brought you pleasure and the pain of a business that is not living up to expectations. However, as we spend the majority of our waking hours working, we may as well be doing something that brings us meaning in our lives and pleasure even in the dark moments. Here are five things that I learned from launching not one but four businesses.
1. Be Really Clear On Your Why
Why do you want to have your own business in the first place? Why have you chosen to work in your specific area or industry? How will run your own business, and specifically the business you have chosen to run, make your life better? How will it add meaning? Being aware of the answers to all of these questions is really important as running your own business can be very challenging. Holding on to your reason for going into entrepreneurship in the first place is what will pull you through the hard times and will keep you on track.
2. Appreciate That The Journey Is Not Linear
I often liken running a business to being on a roller coaster; sometimes, you are experiencing the rush and exhilaration of getting a new client or making a sale, and other times you are crashing down in despair as no one is responding to your posts or buying your services or products. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship! Everyone will have a different journey, but a common complaint I see from my coaching clients is that nothing is consistent. Some months they do really well, and other months, it’s crickets. There are ways to limit the ebbs and flows and to have more consistency month to month, and that is what I help my coaching clients with, but a basic acceptance of this journey will help pull you through the hard times. Running your own business is such an adventure! Despite the challenges, I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
3. Running Your Own Business Can Be Lonely
I left a fabulous career working with an incredible bunch of international colleagues, traveling the world for my job, and regularly connecting with others in meetings or during our lunch breaks.
Suddenly I found myself as a party of one, eating lunch on the fly while my baby slept, in between my social media posts and other business-building activities I was doing for myself.
I hadn’t expected this level of loneliness. And it was really hard.
Social media gets a lot of negative press, but with careful consideration, you can find your tribe. Join Facebook groups, connect with people on LinkedIn, and set aside time for virtual coffees. You don’t need to do this alone, and even if you don’t have a business coach or mentor, you can always find someone who’s willing to share the journey with you.
4. You Don’t Need A Lot Of Money To Begin With
Trust me when I say that businesses are not successful because of the fancy website they have or the professional photography or even the team of virtual assistants who are managing things behind the scenes.
A business is successful because of the person running it.
There are so many build-your-own-website platforms nowadays that you don’t need to get one professionally built. If you have the resources, then, by all means, go ahead but keep things simple at the beginning.
I did everything by myself at first. While I dreamed of having an assistant and a team of people to do all the tasks I didn’t want to do, thus allowing me to focus on where my passions lay, I realized it wasn’t realistic for me in the early days.
I’m actually really grateful that I started off by doing everything myself. I have learned so much, and I know my business intimately, and that had allowed me to get the help where I need it while also developing skills I didn’t have before this venture began.
5. Mindset Is Crucial
As a business coach, clients come to me because they want help with marketing, sales, and strategy. They want to know the next steps they need to take in their business in order to build something that will last, will be profitable, and that will be successful, whatever success means to them. But what inevitably happens is that their mindset gets in the way. Mindset has become a buzzword, and that is such a shame. I have a certification in mindfulness, and I am a master NLP practitioner. I am also a science geek and have read everything I can get my hands on about the brain, how it connects with the body, neuroscience, and quantum physics. I have learned so much over the last few years that when I hear the statement ‘Mindset is everything,’ I know it is true. Social media is one of the best and cheapest ways to build a business these days. But it is also the number one killer of success. Why is that? It is because of comparison-itis and imposter syndrome. Women are particularly affected by these two conditions as we see the success of others and feel that we can never live up to it. The simplest way to overcome these mindset setbacks is to realize that you are unique. Nobody can contribute to the world the way you can. I promise you there are people waiting to receive your help in the form of your products or services, so never give up. But never compare yourself to others either. Their journey is different from yours, and they are most likely further along. I have learned so much more than just these five points, of course. I have run a health food business, a jewelry business, a mental well-being business, and I am a business coach. My health food and jewelry businesses I closed when I left the country I had been living in, as they were geography-specific. But my mental well-being and business coaching practices are still going strong today. I wish everyone would have the courage to step into their own business. You don’t have to leave your day job if you don’t want to. But knowing what a difference it has made to me, my daily life, my self-confidence, and the level of meaning I feel in my life, I can’t help but want to share that with the world.
You can find Samantha on her website, wellbeingseries, and LinkedIn!
Samantha Touchais, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Samantha Touchais is a Business and Mindset Coach helping women create a safe and secure path to launching their dream business by providing them with the support and tools to make it a success. She has over 20 years of marketing and strategy experience working for large international companies worldwide, and it was her love of how the mind works and how to create the right mindset for success that led her into coaching. She lives and breathes marketing and mindset and loves sharing her learnings with others. Author of four books and the creator of the Well Being Series (a collection of apps and books that provide meditations and affirmations for well-being based on the latest neuro-science), she loves exploring Europe, where she has been for the last 14 years but misses the beaches of her native Australia.
