Being an entrepreneur comes with a lot of ups and downs. High income months, low income months, months without clients, months with a client waitlist. The inevitable unpredictability can feel stressful. You may find yourself thinking, I’ll just keep pushing through and hopefully things will turn around. I can’t go back to a full-time job. That would mean I failed at my business. It’s a more common thought than you may realize. I have worked with clients who need the support of extra income as they build their business, but feel shame at the thought of taking a full-time job.
Today, I want you to give yourself permission to consider a full-time job as a route to help you more consistently grow your business. I want you to know there is no right or wrong way to build your business.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about why it’s okay to take a full-time job, how to set clear financial goals and a timeline for when you’re ready to go full-time with your business, and the importance of having money systems in place to keep you on the right track.
It’s easy to get caught up in shame and guilt, but I want you to put those thoughts behind you and think of how a full-time job can actually give you more freedom to grow your business.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
- Why it’s okay if you need to take/return to a full-time job while building your business [1:48]
- How to think in terms of the current season of your life while still keeping your business a number one priority [06:37]
- How to be honest and set clear boundaries with a potential employer when it comes to your business [07:55]
- Setting clear financial goals and a timeline for when you can go all-in with your business [9:21]
- How taking on a full-time role can free up space and time to focus on bringing money into your business without the stress and pressure of having to make a certain amount of money from your business [10:37]
- Why it’s important to be confident in your business and money systems before leaving a full-time role [12:44]
- Thinking of the positive that can come from having a full-time role while building your business instead of focusing on shame or guilt [14:36]
- Questions to ask yourself about how to rebuild, how much income you desire, and timeframe for leaving a full-time role [19:49]
Tune in to this episode to learn why it’s okay to return to a full-time job while growing your business and ways to shift your own narrative about how you desire to financially build your business.
In the episode…
I’m giving you full permission to go get a full-time job if that is what is best for you in the present moment. This can be a difficult sell because we often think that returning to a full-time job after starting a business means that we’ve failed. If right now, you need to make more money and the best way for you to do that is to get a full-time job, then do it.
This doesn’t mean you failed at your business. This doesn’t mean you’re off track. It means that you are taking care of your needs and prioritizing your financial security so you’re able to build your business without unnecessary financial stress.
When you’re not worrying about where your money is coming from, you have the capacity to focus on how to grow your business sustainably. You give yourself the time to build money systems that work for you. And you can see your full time role as a means to help you intentionally build while also holding space for your business goals.
What to consider when looking for a full-time job…
Try to find a job that fits with your skill sets.
If the job aligns with something you’re good at or enjoy, it will be easier to get up to speed and easier for you to have the energy to focus on your business after hours.
Flexibility can be helpful.
If you can find a job with flexible hours, that will allow you to prioritize your business while also fulfilling your job duties.
Decide how much money you want to make.
Take a look at your money goals and your financial plan, and then pick a salary that fits your needs. The whole point of taking on a full-time job is to eliminate money stress, so make sure that you’re making enough.
Set clear boundaries with your employer.
If you so choose, you can be honest with your boss about your business. You might not want to accept a job that requires overtime, for example. Your business is your priority, and you want to make sure you have time to continue to build it.
Takeaways from this episode…
- Look at taking on a full-time job as a positive thing for yourself, your sanity, your stress levels, and the future of your business
- Establish money systems that give you full confidence in your business and its growth
- Remember that this isn’t forever! Give yourself a specific timeline for when you can leave the full-time job to pursue your business full-time
If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to start working on your money management skills, here’s your sign: The time is now, whether you’re in a full-time job or a full-time entrepreneur. Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
Did you love this episode on taking a full-time job when needed? Check out this episode about how to choose your money thoughts!
Transcript for “Giving Yourself Permission to Grow Your Business and Take on a Full-Time Job”:
Hi and welcome to Money Files, I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work every day with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Hi and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. I want to talk to you about a consult that I had recently. And the reason I want to talk to you about this consult is because I think that some of you might actually be able to breathe a sigh of relief with the permission that I’m going to grant you today. So when I was on this consult, I don’t think that this potential client thought I was going to offer this solution. But when we were talking about their problem, their particular problem, it came down to not having enough money month to month. And it wasn’t because of really spending like, I didn’t hear that. I just heard, like, doesn’t sound like you’re actually making enough money.
And so some of the pain points that you’re experiencing and some of the anxiety that you’re experiencing and the overwhelm, like those are going to continue to be there if we can’t increase your income. And she was an independent contractor. And so we got to one point in the consult and I ask her, you know, what are your thoughts about getting a job or doing more contract hours with some of what was one of the streams of income she had? And there was a pause there, and I was just really curious because I know and this is why I say I’m going to give you guys permission that people have a lot of thoughts about having been in business for themselves for an amount of time and then needing to or having to go back to work.
What generally comes up is that you have thoughts about you failed. What does this say about your success? Does this mean I’m going to have to throw in the towel or like, this is never going to work, but if this resonates with you, I just want to offer that being in business for yourself, working for yourself is not for the faint of heart. And when I say the faint of heart, it’s the things that we see on social media, the things that people share. They’re really sharing their highlight reel, like they’re not talking about lower income months in business. They’re not talking about needing to pay your health care, thinking through retirement, looking at like, OK, I know where my expenses are going to come out, come for the next two weeks.
But what happens after that, like those are not the conversations that we’re having. We glamorize and talk about the perks of being in business for yourself when you’re like, Oh my goodness, I’m leaving my job and I have all this freedom. But ultimately, when you leave your job, you’re also walking away from some financial security that you’re accustomed to and that you have just like that provides a level of comfort for you. And I say this from a firsthand account if you don’t know my story. I left my job in July of 2018. I actually left it before then, but that’s when I started my business. I decided I wasn’t going back to work full time and I was going to live off my savings and do some contract work. For those of you who don’t know, it takes a long time to build an emergency fund, and it takes no time to actually spend all the money in your emergency fund. And at that particular time, I was comfortable like, OK, you know, I’ll use my savings. I’m building this business. People are going to come because, you know, if you build it, people will come. And people weren’t like lining up at the door to work with me at that time. I had a website and I thought that like, once you click publish on a website that all of a sudden people appear, that’s that’s not how it works, apparently. And I didn’t know that because nobody really broke it down for me in that way.
But during those first few months, I was fine. Like, you know, spending money out of my savings, I knew I had a little bit of contract work and so I had some level of comfort there. Fast forward, I think probably April 2019, like you need health care, which is expensive. I still had savings, but I like didn’t want to go to zero in my savings. It was also true for myself, I was like, Gosh, I haven’t contributed to retirement. I don’t feel like I’m really adding to my savings. I’m just taking money out of my savings. And so I had some level of financial anxiety around that, and I didn’t feel settled with the way in which the income I was bringing in, minus, like the income that needed to go out to cover my expenses because I owned a home. I live in a very high cost of living area. So it also wasn’t true that I could like go work at McDonald’s for a couple of hours and and pay my bills. Like I needed, generally speaking, four to five thousand dollars a month to make sure I can cover my mortgage car payment, et cetera. So at that time, I chose to, like, apply for a full time role, and I knew that in applying for a full time role, I wanted to and I would have to rethink how I was spending time in my business. But for me, the decision to take on a full time role was about creating this financial security for myself. I didn’t want to feel like I needed to sign clients. I didn’t want to feel like I was exhausting or draining all of my savings like and kind of feeling like I was getting to this point of no return there for, like the thought of of being negative in my account, sort of like incurring a whole bunch of debt on credit cards like I didn’t want that. And so I knew for me that my solution at that time was I had a skill set, could be gainfully employed.
And so I chose to apply for a role that happened to be a coaching role. I coached school leaders and other administrators within the school system, and the role at the time was very flexible. I was able to kind of craft my schedule around also building my business. So in making this decision and giving myself the permission to take on a full time role, I also thought about like, what did I need for this season in my life? I didn’t make this about like, Oh my goodness, my business is going to fail. This means I’m not successful. I really was like, Nope, I can do this like both and. And in fact, I used to joke that the full time role I had, I was like, That’s my side hustle, and my business is my full time role. Any time, like somebody in my family asked about my job, I would be like, You mean my side hustle? Oh, it’s fine. Let me tell you about my business. So that helped me just like hold space for both. Like, yes, I was working, but honestly, my energy was in building my business in something that felt very purpose aligned and in something that I knew I could have an impact that I knew that I was like, all in on and I wasn’t giving up on. So that was 2019. Like, I shared my goals with my coach at the time so she could hold space for my growth as a business owner, but also like she could help me with my marketing. She could help me with just different things that I know I wanted to challenge myself on in terms of like mindset and just thinking about where did I want to be at the end of 2019? Where did I want to be at the end of 2020? I also, when I was applying to this role, I was very, very clear with the employer at the time that I had a business and I felt comfortable in my own self concept as a business owner and where I was in life, like I told you, I still had money in savings. At the end of the day, I knew that I was all in on my business, and so I wanted this new employer to know, Hey, I have a business. And at the end of the day, if something happens in this role and I don’t feel like I have freedom of time or freedom of choice like I will put in a resignation.
So that was about me, just like setting some really clear boundaries. I said it more eloquently than that, although in some ways I am a very cut and dry person when I know what I want. So I was very clear on what I wanted and the role of of that job. I wasn’t trying to build a career out of this job. It didn’t mean I wasn’t going to give my all in that role. But it wasn’t about me building a career. It was about me being able to have that financial security. And it also helped that the role was aligned with a skill set that I had. I created a schedule that allowed me to be at work when I was at work, but then also created a schedule of like, when could I be in my business, be focused on my business, so I really could create this like “both and” lifestyle. But what was also important for me is that as I was building my business, I was able to set really clear financial goals so I could make a plan to when I could solely work for myself again. So it was very loose. I think like in 12 to 24 months, I was kind of thinking like, Yup, I can be all in on my business again and fully leave this job without any like issues in terms of thinking about, like where I stand financially. And so I saw this like 12 to twenty four months as an opportunity for me to build a runway for myself, to be able to know concretely when I could leave my job. So that’s the perspective that I had when I decided to work full time while also running my business.
So when I was talking to this client, like, I also had that perspective. I know even from working with with clients right now, the ones that are business owners, I always try to ask them, like, What are you going to do when you have lower income months? What are you going to do if the money doesn’t look like what you desire it to look like? Because oftentimes we will go into shame or guilt. And so I want to know that people have their own backs. I want to teach people to have their own backs because that’s not what we’re talking about on social media. And so in this conversation on this consult, I wanted to offer this particular person a different perspective because I wanted her to see that she could create this both and lifestyle for herself, that maybe it did look like she took on a role that would guarantee, and I’m just throwing a number out there, like that could guarantee that she could generate $4000 a month. And so if you could have a role that would guarantee that you created four thousand dollars a month, how would that allow you to actually free up space, free up time? How much time you’re spending, thinking about like, Oh, you know, I can’t pay my bills, where is money coming from? And if you can find a solution for that, which might be, like I said, for her, it was like, what if this contract could actually create another four thousand dollars for you? Then how would you be able to think more thoughtfully about other areas of your business where you desire to create more money because you wouldn’t be attached to money coming in? And so like now, we’re having a different conversation about finances that isn’t just about like making ends meet. We’re having a conversation about the expansive nature in which you can create money, how you can use that money in your life to advance your goals forward.
So if you are listening to this, my goal in in sharing this with you is that I do know that people that listen to my podcast, some of you have businesses or maybe your independent contractor and you’ve gone fully into a role where you are required to pay yourself. You’re required to pay for your health care, you’re required to put into your retirement. Or maybe you’re even thinking about this, right? You’re like, Oh, I’m ready to leave my full time role and just go all in on my business. And so I think that there’s something that you can take from this podcast if you’re the latter of those where you’re like thinking about leaving your role. I would tell you to, like, be financially prepared and be thinking about what is it that you specifically need to know that you’re going to be ready to go out on your own? I left that full time role that I told you I took back in 2019. I left that role in January of 2021. I gave my two weeks notice in December 2020 and left in January 2021, but it was very clear For me that it was time for me to leave because I had like four months of business expenses set aside, I could pay myself for like three months I had tax savings set aside. I had money set aside in like savings in my actual business, like I had business financial systems that let me like, monitor my cash flow. So I felt really confident with how I was able to create money in my business. Like it was like I said, clear cut and dried. Not like it was in January of 2018 where was like, I have a good idea. I’m hoping for the best. I’m going to live off my savings. There is two totally different feelings when I left that role in January of 2021.
So if you’re like on the fence and you’re thinking about, Hey, I want to go work for myself a full time which I help clients do, this is like helping them actually look at their business income, helping them look at their personal income and and find like, when will you know that it’s ready to take the leap? What do you need? Because what you need and I need might be two different things. But what are you going to need to know that you can feel comfortable making that leap for yourself, that you know, that you can trust yourself financially, that your business can take care of itself financially? So if you’re listening, like I said and you’re on the fence about, I’m full time role already, I have a business and I’m thinking about taking the leap. I think this conversation is for you as well, because maybe there will come a point in time or, you know, six months in you’re like, Whoa, hold on, Let me think about if I actually want to go back and take on some additional work. But I think the lesson in this is like one, have financial systems two, also just being really mindful that you may want to judge yourself, but being able to ask yourself, like, how could how could like having a business and having a full time role be the best thing for me right now? Like what would that allow me to create? That may look different than what you see on social media. If you were someone who is working for yourself right now and you feel some like financial stress and you are, you’ve thought about taking on a full time role. I want to just give you permission to do that. Like, how could that also be the best thing for you right now? You get to kind of craft and design, however, this life looks like for you. It doesn’t have to be, and it doesn’t have to mean like, oh my goodness, have to work 80 hours a week. I would suggest that if you decide to go and take on a full time role for myself, I wanted it to be like at the salary that I was previously making.
So I wasn’t willing to take on a role where I was making like ten dollars an hour because my expenses, like that wouldn’t have done much for me. I needed and desired a role like if I was going to show up, then I was going to be paid like in the six figures, like I was being paid previously because that’s what I knew I was worth, what I was capable of making and and sought out opportunities for that to be true. And I will tell you actually the role that I had, I think I went in asking for like $120,000, I didn’t get $120,000. I think I came in at like $95,000. But in negotiating and looking at what I was doing in the role, I was just very specific about how I use my time. And so the benefit for me and being able to see other things that I was getting was that my schedule was really flexible. I wasn’t working a whole 40 hours a week. I was working probably less than I’d ever worked in my life before. And so I was able to look at some of the trade offs, the financial trade offs, because your girl was like $95,000. Do you know what? OK, let me speak my piece. And but I was just very clear once again on what it was providing for me financially. I also knew where I was in terms of my, my other financial goals, but it wouldn’t have been true for me that I would have taken a job that was $50,000 a year like that wouldn’t have fit for what I needed financially. I live in a high cost of living area and that just wouldn’t have made a lot of sense for me.
But if you are in that position where you’re thinking about, maybe I need to take on a full time role. Just think about like what’s actually true with your numbers, what’s happening? Does the math make sense? Sometimes when I’m talking to people like if you are bringing in eight hundred dollars a month but your expenses are two thousand dollars a month, like the math equation is always going to be negative. And so as a business owner or independent contractor, you’re going to be stressed out. Are you OK Being in, managing that financial stress, I know for myself I wouldn’t be OK with that for an extended number of months, I would have to give myself some type of limit for for how long I was willing to be in the red. And so I know that I wouldn’t be able to have my back for a whole year of doing that. And so I would I would want to supplement my income. So you have to figure that part out for yourself. To that point, asking yourself, like, are you willing to have your own back? What does it look like if you have a lower than average income months? What does it look like if you have a $0 month, right? Especially if the math doesn’t make sense? I’m not talking to people who their businesses are flourishing. You’re making the $10000 a month, you’re making five thousand eight thousand dollars a month, whatever it is that you desire to make. But I’m thinking about really, truly where I was in my business When I first started out, I think I was probably making like twelve hundred dollars months. And so like twelve hundred dollars months weren’t willing to sustain the expenses that I had in my business and sustain me financially.
So I knew that I needed to pivot and do something different as I learned how to create money month to month in my business and how I learned to build that financial consistency within my business. So just thinking about that for yourself, if you have other income sources that are available to you, if you have a really great, really great savings or you’re willing to, maybe you’re someone who’s like, Whatever, I’m going to go into credit card debt, then just challenging yourself on what you’re OK with being true and then decide, what do I want to do? Do I, Does it make sense for me right now to actually take on a full time role? Because the truth is, it’s like you can’t feed yourself, you can’t show up in your business if you’re like feeding yourself from this empty pot. So if you decide to apply for the job and build your business at the same time, this is a great opportunity for you to create a new financial plan. It’s an opportunity for you to think about, OK, like how much money do I desire to make? How much like, how much will I need in my business accounts when I decide to leave this role again? How many months do I want to give myself in order to rebuild? while I’m rebuilding, How am I using a financial system to manage the money that is coming into my business?
So I see you deciding to take on a role, a full time role as a true perk for yourself. It’s an opportunity for you to build or rebuild and implement lessons that you’ve learned since you’ve been in business for yourself, since you’ve been that independent contractor. And it’s not an opportunity for you to judge yourself. It’s really just about like, OK, I’m going to take the lessons that I’ve learned, and I’m going to apply them so that when I decide to solely work for myself again, I’m going to be where I desire to be. I will tell you, doesn’t mean you’re not going to have low income months, but the low income months will look much different. Your low income month might be a $10,000 month instead of $100 a month. Right? But because you took the time to rebuild and you created financial systems within your business, you’re going to be able to adjust for lower and higher income months. So this podcast was really one that was like, You know what, I’m going to go in and I just want to talk to people out there that maybe need to give themselves permission to think about taking on a full time role. I think that there’s a lot of judgment that we place in ourselves about what that means to build a business and work full time. Or, you know, we were in full time in our business and now we’re going to go and and take on a role. I just want to give you permission to let yourself free of that judgment. I have another client who recently she just went back into a corporate role, and I think she fought it for months. And now she’s like, loving it. She’s like, Keina, ever since that happened, like, you know, clients have been coming out of nowhere. And so it’s just, I feel like we we are telling ourselves we have to do all of these things, right? Like, I don’t want other people to see that I had to go back and And get a job, but girl, I want you to live your best financial life, and so whatever that looks like for you, just create and design it and choose your thoughts, choose the story that you want to write and thrive financially.
So I hope that there’s some nugget that stuck with you. If you are thinking about that or you’re thinking about going into business for yourself, just knowing that you get to design how you want to do life and how you want to do business. Thank you so much for listening to money files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.WealthOverNow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
