(IHMIY) Loneliness in Early Entrepreneurship - Ep 3
Feb 27, 2024
When I first started building a business from scratch, I didn't realise how completley alone I would be.
I had jumped from a busy, full-time teaching job, with various additional responsibilities, to no job at all - just me, myself and time in my business.
All that time, surely I was loving it?!
WRONG.
Despite the excitement and adventure of pursuing this new, flexible lifestyle, where I would be the one in control of my time, working on a project I loved and was passionate about, and could see the direct rewards and results of my own efforts... it was lonely.
But having spent the two years prior learning how to be alone and enjoy and embrace my single life, I took the same principles and learnings to overcome that loneliness in my business.
And you can hear all about how I've navigated that transition in this week's Big Vision Business Owners episode of "I Haven't Made It Yet"
When I first started building a business from scratch, I didn't realise how completley alone I would be.
I had jumped from a busy, full-time teaching job, with various additional responsibilities, to no job at all - just me, myself and time in my business.
All that time, surely I was loving it?!
WRONG.
Despite the excitement and adventure of pursuing this new, flexible lifestyle, where I would be the one in control of my time, working on a project I loved and was passionate about, and could see the direct rewards and results of my own efforts... it was lonely.
But having spent the two years prior learning how to be alone and enjoy and embrace my single life, I took the same principles and learnings to overcome that loneliness in my business.
And you can hear all about how I've navigated that transition in this week's Big Vision Business Owners episode of "I Haven't Made It Yet"
One of the things that people talk about if you get them vulnerable enough in business, especially if you're a solopener, is that it can be a little bit lonely sometimes. And one of my biggest topics of interest is loneliness because I think it has a lot to answer for. I think there's a lot wrong with, unfortunately, the society in the UK. Maybe you could argue in the Western world that loneliness is just its own massive problem and endemic, probably a pandemic of its own because of the knock on that it has. From my reading and I won't go too much into it right now my reading on the topic, which predominantly comes back to Johann Hari's loss connections. This is why there is a rise in mental health issues, problems, disorders, and some are completely separate from that, but a lot of them can be held to the account of the problems we have within society. And that's what Johann Hari goes into in his book that there are a number of ways that we are disconnected as a society, and he also talks about the ways to reconnect. So big recommendation on that book if you're interested in that and you are in despair at this idea that we have so many problems with anxiety and depression. There are some genuine cases that cannot be as easily solved. But there are a number, I think, based on the book and what I read, that come back to the problems we have in society and not feeling like we belong and not feeling like we've got a crowd, and that can be experienced when you're at school and that you don't feel like you have a group. It can be experienced in life. Even when you're in a relationship. You can feel alone because you don't feel truly connected to someone and in my own case, I didn't know who I was, to know what I really wanted, so I wasn't connected to my life. I didn't know how to be anything but who I was, but to not show any other side in particular. Like I was busy and I had friends but and it wasn't super surface level I adore them, but I didn't let people in beyond the surface level let's put it that way and that is part of my journey. If you want to find out more, you can go and listen to the Single Girls Guide to Life. There's 100 episodes of that and that's where I let my podcasting trade, but that's that's for all of the backlog of that exists over there and that journey through and that's what I shared. So now, what was that?
Speaker 1:
Four, five years on, we're getting on for now, when I had the whole realization reset and going back, I really do know a lot more about myself now, a lot more about what I want, and I have such deep connections to other people. I will let people in. I'm not afraid to show emotion you know it's still a time and a place for it at times Not going to end up crying in front of a classroom. But there's not a lot that I won't talk about in the right spaces, with the right people. I am open and I'll talk about things diplomatically and share, because I think sharing is one of those ways to connect.
Speaker 1:
But when it comes to business, it is lonely and I remember when I first transitioned from being in a full-time job to being not a business owner, I didn't call myself that. I mean I was transitioning. Really, I was hoping I was going to make it work. I wasn't really sure how, but I left teaching in the December of 2021 and started basically 2022 afresh with no official job, not even the supply worker that I had. I had a little bit actually at school locally and that actually snowballed into doing the same at my old school and then doing the same at my old old school, which is the one that I'm currently at.
Speaker 1:
But before I really had that solid bit of work with my previous and now current employer, I was again incredibly lonely in the experience, because I was I was really quite upset, even though I had done what I needed to do in terms of leaving my job. That in itself made me upset. I remember the day that I handed my notice in officially and ended up crying in the bath for hours, and it wasn't because it was the wrong thing to do. It's because I had such an emotional attachment to the place, the people, the memories. I loved it and I still adore it, although I know it's changed since I've been there, you know, with staffing, with initiatives. So maybe I wouldn't have loved it and maybe I left it exactly the right time that I needed to. That didn't mean that it wasn't hard to do and I felt I was losing a lot of connections and people and experiences and that made me incredibly sad.
Speaker 1:
And then there was this second part that I didn't see coming and essentially I felt that I had. Well, no, I didn't feel I had it. I basically, yeah, I was again quite upset, even though this was exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to work on the business, I wanted to work flexibly for the first six weeks. It was horrendous and I turned to as I always do to education in these times to try and understand what's going on. Like why am I so upset? Like what is this? Because you wanted all this and this is not what you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 1:
And the minute I had the supply work even though the supply work is not what I want to do long term like the minute I had just two days a week and even then I don't know if it was as certain as that, just it was more regular than the rest it was like, oh yeah, we need you that day and that day. We need you that day and that day and notice the word that I use there is that, oh, we need you that day and that day. Suddenly somebody needed me, and at the time I didn't have a relationship either, and whilst a relationship is not the only thing that can give you a need or a purpose, obviously it feeds him, so I didn't really have too much need. I wasn't there and I prior to having the work I researched, delved in and I came across something called the retirement blues and I basically decided whether it's true or not, but I came to the conclusion that I had hit retirement blues well before retirement.
Speaker 1:
But because of the way that I'd gone from a full-time, very intense job and I mean teaching is not just 25 hours teaching plus some it's your world. I think. If you're really in it and you're passionate, as I was, about it and like I did love it, that's intense. And then I'm going to a world where, okay, yes, I will go to the gym every day, just because I can, I've got the time. And what am I going to do with the business otherwise? And let me be honest with you, at that point I did not have sales skills, so I didn't even know I was spending my time up. I was good at content and I could do that, but I was like, oh, I don't need all this time. I've been running on, you know, creating content in five hours of the time I get at home between like four o'clock and nine o'clock, so it's not like I need all this day stuff. But I'd wanted the headspace to be able to work on the business and it turned out I always had too much time and there were some, some people I could connect with, but not loads in terms of the fact that people had work.
Speaker 1:
So this idea of retirement blues is when people think and work to their retirement, they hit it and the stories that I read. There was one story I came across online where a lady had described I think it was a lady had described her experience of like she woke up that first morning of her retirement. She's like I'm gonna start sorting this house out and I think she'd done like a good deep clean of her house. She's got up, she'd done a few hours and she said she turned to the clock and looked and she felt a natural point of finishing. I thought, oh, you know, done well there, I must have taken up a day. She looked at the clock and it was something like 10 o'clock and she was like it's only 10 o'clock and I've done all of that. And it was her kind of realization, from what I remember, of I'm gonna have an awful lot of time more than I anticipated. And I think we can all think that the other side of a job or the other side of a business in this sense is gonna be that you get all this time.
Speaker 1:
But I learned in that experience that time is not everything for me. I always say it I think I said it before that but I really really know that now that I'm not the type that probably will ever stop working until I can't you know whether you physically are just more tired and so you don't have as many hours and it doesn't make sense. Or there's another and this is another, and I always turn to like, okay, it might not be work, but then I'd be in volunteer on a project or I'd be doing something to give back. There's, there's no way that I just need time. And as well as having that purpose and that reason to get up, the other side of it is that this loneliness comes from people not understanding your experience in that loneliness, but also just understanding the experience as a business owner.
Speaker 1:
And I remember somewhere around that early January time. I'd love to look back. Actually and I'm not going to look back whilst I'm recording, but I'd love to look back and see when I booked the ticket to go to what was back there my very first expert empires and I had been as cleverly as you like targeted, added by Nick James. It would have come through, as I imagine, and I signed up. It said it was for coaches and consultants and I was like I need I know I need to find people that are like me, that are in business, trying to work it out, and I didn't know anything about him. It possibly had maybe someone like Lewis Howes back at the time. Oh, I've just found it on the old emails you've success for the secured your place on the priority notification list and I had reserved my ticket for expert empires. That was on the 12th of February, so I'm at 2022. So I'm exactly in the place that I thought I was and from there, once I attended my first event, it would have been a month or two or two later I feel like it was end of March, start April. They had that event. It transformed what I did because I was suddenly in a room and the conference had spoken about money and people had spoken about, you know, earning. Probably at the time they were saying that they were in six figures and seven figures and I had never been around that kind of space. You know, I had not even thought about it.
Speaker 1:
The reality that if you're going to actually build a business and you're going to employ, like yourself and other people. You have to be turning over at least six figures to start doing that if you're going to pay people fairly, and you're going to I don't know. In my head, I always envision having this business and I don't know how the numbers work exactly. So vision first, mechanic second. But I always envision like people being paid five day wages, five five day week wages, but only actually working four day weeks, having perks, days out for socials, because to me, work is partially life and it's got to do a bit of both, whilst also having a balance with whatever else you want to do with your life. I'm not for the entire work from home, remote style, but having an office space that people want to come to. They're a. That's the kind of vision I have.
Speaker 1:
So having these realizations and people that normalize money and share their experiences, highs and lows, was something I needed and I found. Thanks to that and in my head after that event, I wanted to make sure that I kept in touch with that area and kept finding those people. So when they offered to buy the ticket for the September, I was like I'm in, done and I now have their NFT, which gave me access to for the next four years. So I will be there no matter what. So it's this idea of community and it's just being around people of a community right now. That's reminded me of that.
Speaker 1:
So I'm actually part of elite closing academy. I've been part of that for the good part of the last year, coming up for us at nine months and going to those days. As much as driving up to Birmingham is a trek. It is two and a half hours there and two and a half hours back. I do it all in one day with, obviously, the training in the middle. I can't describe to you what it's like to be part of a community that I completely align with. The other people are completely aligned with that process of and getting everything from that in terms of the, the camaraderie, the connection, the encouraging one another and, because I'm now nine months in, there's also this element that I'm like I've been there quite a while now I can there's a lot more people coming through and I remember being in that position when you first start and we had to do a out of 10 sort of check in with where we are with certain techniques for sales and then you give your score, a score out of 100. Now I don't have my original number of what I have, but I know it was not near the number I had yesterday and my number came out because it was 10 things each out of 10 out of 181 was my score and it it just explained to me how far I'd come on that journey.
Speaker 1:
But it isn't all about just that. I mean, obviously I do want to get better at sales. That's the whole point, because it's a total area that I have, or previously have, no comfort in at all. Mmm made me feel like that. But the other thing was that I love going up there every month to catch up with everybody, to celebrate with them, to encourage, to have fun. I mean there are some cracking people in that group. Shout out to a number of them. Oh my God, I can't shout out. Can I shout out Because if not I'm going to miss someone. But I mean, chris is my sales call buddy. We practice every week. So that's amazing.
Speaker 1:
Back row team yesterday, because we've apparently become the background Again. I think that's because we've been there a while. There's Alice, there's James, there's Diane and there's so many people in the room. Again, I'm not going to be able to mention everybody, but there's Mark, there's Jeff, there's Sarah, there's all these people and then the ones that have been there a number of times now and then there's all the new people joining and I can't describe what that's worth to me. And the community is so valuable. It just allows me to be in the space that I'm in in business and feel supported.
Speaker 1:
And that doesn't just. It's not just that community either. The content creation club community is kind of growing and I know I have people that support me, people that I can turn to in Chulksford as well. I don't even know what we call it because it's not like an official grouping, but these people that are Chulksford business owner networkers, they all know who they are. And again, I'll mention the three names that tagged me as something yesterday because it's going to make that very easy. But you've got Tash. I mean she goes by about 6,000 different names. There's Tash, there's Nicola, there's Louise and that kind of grouping of people and some people have only met like a handful of times. But you get support and you feel belonging. And when you share what's going on when you're in person, you share it, like people are there to listen and to support and to encourage you through, as well as help you pivot and to consider new ideas, and to give valuable information away for free and to help each other out and getting leads.
Speaker 1:
There's something magical about the business world and finding the right business people for you, and if that's the one thing I found, that this experience in business doesn't have to be as lonely if you just find groups and you have to actually make friends with them. It isn't just about networking. It isn't just about getting money off people or finding money from the people they know in that networking sense. There is a side to that. Of course, your business needs to thrive and networking is a technique that I use and many people use.
Speaker 1:
But along the way, let's pick up some business besties, some friends. I mean there's Alex as well. Alex is someone that I met through the Single Girls Guy to Life and the Single Girls Club, and she came along basically as a client, but in reality she's also a business friend, a friend that lives always. She ports them away, I mean ages away. To actually meet in person is quite difficult for us, wherever she is down somewhere on the south. So it's nice to have these different people in these different places, like some of the people I've just described are in Northampton, lemington and obviously locally in Chumsford. It's exciting to have that experience in that community and it's the sense of belonging that we sometimes need to not have the loneliness and to have people to turn to in business.
Speaker 1:
So if you are ever feeling that loneliness in business, I urge you to find a community. You can check out the communities that I'm involved with. Come along to a Chumsford event. Any of them will generally do that. I find them all to be very friendly. They've all got slightly different styles Expert Empires, elite Closing Academy, whether it's training or sales, and closing super conferences that's London for EE and Birmingham for ECA, in terms of their events at the moment, to what I understand.
Speaker 1:
You know, find them, try one's out. I'm trying the Big Festoon next month, atomic on in June oh, there's something in September Ideas Fest. I find my ways into these places based on going to events most of the time. So find your communities, and I'm now in Lisa Johnson, strategy Group, code, charlie Day Sales as well. You know there's a few different ones. I'm trying out seeing what it's like, meeting people from them and finding those people along the way. Find your business besties and have people along with you for the ride. Be your cheerleaders, be your support, be part of your network and you won't feel so lonely in business.
