Episode 458: How I Transitioned From Full-Time Work To Full-Time Entrepreneurship (best of the podcast)

This episode was a long-time in the making. In 2019 I released an episode just after I’d officially gone full-time in my business sharing all of the nitty gritty details – the ups and downs, courage and self-sabotage, successes and setbacks. I’m sharing it again on the podcast, 5 years after it was initially released, in case you’re in the thick of this journey and you’re looking for something inspiring (and practical) to help you keep going. 

When my goal was going full-time in my business, I was constantly searching for resources and advice to help me figure out how to transition from full-time work to full-time entrepreneurship. I didn’t have the confidence to take a blind leap of faith so I scoured the internet for wisdom on how to navigate it all. And to be honest, what I found was a little lacking! So I hope that by sharing the details of my experience I’m able to help you figure out when to take your own leap and how to do it.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode458.

Featured In The Episode:

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Why I started my blog even though I didn’t feel confident
  • How I balanced full-time accounting and growing my blog
  • The investments that changed the trajectory of my business and career
  • How I knew the time was right to leave my full-time job and then my part-time job
  • Why resenting your day job will slow your entrepreneurial journey down
  • What my finances have looked like throughout this process
  • Why I was scared to go full-time in my business and how I overcame that fear
  • My next steps now that I’m full-time in my business

Listen To The Episode

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject

Sam Laura Brown (custom intro)
Oh my goodness, my voice right now is so damn quirky. So I’m gonna give this introduction as brief as I possibly can. I’m sharing this episode with you today, because this is one that I actually send out quite a lot when people ask me how I went full time in my business, and maybe you’ll see to this and you’re already full time in your business. But I know that before I was able to be full time in my business, and pay myself a full time salary, that just felt like the Holy Grail, the pinnacle, the only thing I wanted. And truly like I have accomplished a lot since then since 2019. But I feel like being able to go full time in my business and leave first of all my full time accounting job behind and then leaving my part time receptionist job behind.

Being able to do that was such a significant milestone, because it fundamentally changed my day to day life, I was able to truly be my own boss and be the only person that I was working for. And it was such an accomplishment. And it was something that I had been working towards for so so many years. And anytime I heard or came across a podcast episode like this one, I studied it, I listened to it again and again. And I just really also listened to it to just drum up that belief that I wanted to have in myself. And that being possible for me, I just wanted to believe. And so episodes like this really, really, really helped me with that and helped me navigate the ups and the downs. And all that I don’t know is.

So I hope you find this episode really helpful. And it provides you some comfort, if you are on that journey of going full time in your business, I’m so proud to say that I have now been in my business full time and pay myself a full time salary and then some for five years now. And during that time as well, I have had two maternity leaves the first one for Lydia and the second one for the twins. And I know that when it came to going full time in my business, one of the reasons I was so afraid to do that was because it would mean sacrificing a 14 week maternity leave that I would get at my job. And so to just have been able to have such amazing time off, to be able to have my children and be present with them. And I work three days a week, and I’m able to work when I want all those kinds of things. Like it’s just so incredible. And I’m so proud of myself for doing the work.

And not just like the work of like typing things and whatever. The mindset work, the belief, the courage, being able to persist and be resilient. And there was so many doubtful and scary moments on that journey of going to full time in my business. But I’m just so proud of myself for keeping at it. I started in 2013, I was a full time Uni student doing law and commerce and majoring in finance and a Diploma of French. And then I graduated in 2015. And I went into accounting. And then in 2017, I left my full time job. And then in 2019, I left my part time job. So in this episode, I’ll share all the details I really put a lot together for this episode, I really remember putting my heart and soul into this one for you. So I just hope you really enjoy it.

The other thing I want to mention before we get into the episode is that I have an exciting announcement about Perfectionist Getting Shit Done, which is my program for perfectionist entrepreneurs. So something very, very exciting is happening on the 18th of April at 6am New York time. So as only a few days away, we will be opening enrollment for Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. And what I’m going to be doing on the 21st of April at 7pm, New York time. So on Sunday evening, if you’re in the US, I am going to be teaching a bonus workshop, it’s going to be called Your First Power Hour is going to go for about two maybe two and a half hours. But I am going to be guiding you through your first power hour with your power planning. You don’t need to come with any prep work or pre work or whatever done. I’m gonna guide you through that first power hour because one of the questions I get asked a lot is all about that first Power Hour and does I know when you’re doing it alone, that it can just feel like you’re gonna get it wrong and like why is it taking me so long and what I do with this thing and what I put that into I just really want to be there support you through it.

So that’s a really special bonus that I am going to be doing. And it’s going to be also available via replay so you can come back to it whenever you might need it and just have it there to support you as you were doing your power planning. But I would absolutely love to have you there with me live so that any live questions you have, you can get them answered on the spot. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd to find out more about the program and Join the waitlist if you are not already signed up for that waitlist so that you don’t miss enrollment and so you’re able to join me inside for the live workshop. The Your First Power Hour workshop I’m so so so excited to be teaching and of course for all current PGSD is listening to this you will get that bonus and be able to be there live as well. So with that said, let’s get into today’s episode.

Sam Laura Brown (main episode)
Hi, and welcome to episode 125 of the perfectionism project. My name is Sam Laura Brown. And this is a podcast where I share personal growth advice for perfectionist. In today’s episode, I am sharing the nitty gritty of how I went from my full time job, to my part time job to now being full time in entrepreneurship the last day, at my part time job is going to be the 26th of July 2019, which is only a few days away. And I really wanted to record an episode that goes into all the detail about how I made that transition. I have talked about some of the earlier parts of what I’m going to share in this episode in previous episodes, but I really wanted to cover it off all in one place. Because as I have been making this transition myself into full time entrepreneurship, I have been scouring the internet for people’s stories about how they made the decisions about when to make that leap and what their finances look like and the decision making process and all of that.

And I just couldn’t really find too many things that were helpful. And when I did, I listened to them or read them again and again and again. So I really wanted to create this episode for you. Because I know that a lot of you guys are wanting to become full time entrepreneurs at some point. And I get a lot of questions about the journey that I’m on myself, because that’s what I’m constantly sharing with you on the podcast. And I wanted to just do an episode where all of that is going to be in one place for you. And also selfishly, I kind of want to recap it, it’s been really, really mind blowing to write out the notes for this episode, I wanted to have some kind of structure to it. And to just see how much has gone into this in terms of time. And in terms of effort as well.

There has been so much that’s happened along the way. It’s been constant iteration, a lot of fear and doubt, a lot of growth, a lot of discomfort. But I have been able to get to this point now where I’m able to go full time in my business, if you don’t actually know exactly what I do. I’m a mindset coach for perfectionist. I’m a personal development blogger, I have this podcast, I have online courses as well, I have a membership called perfectionist getting shit done that I launched earlier this year. So I’m able to go now full time in that business. And I’m able to actually replace the income that I am making currently at my part time job. So I’m not actually leaving because I was struggling to balance the two. Or because I need more time in my business. I’m leaving because at this point, the company is making three times what I personally make.

And I’m going to be talking more about financial decisions and how to kind of figure out exactly when you’re able to leave and support yourself, it’s gonna look different for everyone, depending on your tolerance for risk. And I’m fairly conservative when it comes to that. And finances after working in insolvency, accounting and telling people they’ve lost all their money. But anyway, I think it’s so powerful to just wrap this all up and share the whole journey. Because also I’ve been getting a lot of comments from people when I mentioned anything about not getting shit done that people seem to just think that I’m always productive and have no challenges even though that’s literally what I talk about 24/7 on my podcast and Instagram and the challenges I go through.

But I know that it’s so easy to look at others and be like, Oh, they have it so much better than me. So I really wanted to just share what the process has actually been like, of course, it’s hard to summarize a six year journey. And when I was writing down my notes, it was challenging to put it all together because everything is a bit all over the place in terms of when things became significant. And it’s just been challenging to put it together. But I’m really just wanting to chat to you about how I made this transition. And I’ve written out a few questions that I get asked quite a lot and put them in order. And I’m going to be just sharing my journey. I hope that this gives you a sense of confidence that you can do this at some point for yourself because I didn’t believe this was ever going to be possible for me.

And now as I was saying that I’m in this position where I’m not leaving because I’m struggling with my part time job and balancing that with my business. I’m leaving because while working part time I’ve been able to create a six figure business for the 2018 19 financial year the revenue for my company was 157,000 So I’ve been able to make money in my business and enough that I’m able to support myself. And it makes sense for me to leave. And I just never thought that was possible. And I’m going to be talking about the identity crises I’ve had along the way. Because there have been many, and they have not stopped, they’re still continuing. But it has been a journey. And the reason, the reason that I am able to be here today is because of people who have shared journeys like this on their own podcasts. And when I first started my blog in 2013, it was listening to podcasts and episodes like the one I’m recording for you today, that actually opened my eyes to what was possible.

And it was so empowering for me to hear someone who wasn’t born confident that they had their fears and doubts and obstacles and setbacks. And they were still able to do it. And they weren’t so different from me, that was so empowering. And it is why I make such an effort to share the numbers to share what my experience is actually like, I really try hard not to glamorize entrepreneurship, I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but I never post like a photo of my laptop at the beach being like, ah, not a bad office for the day, like, I don’t do that kind of thing. Because if I’m at the beach with my laptop, which I can’t think of even when that’s happened recently, but I’m looking at my laptop, I’m not really at the beach. So it’s just, I think, really important to not paint entrepreneurship as this cure all. And I think that if you are wanting to get into entrepreneurship, because you don’t want to work for a boss, and you really struggle with that, yes, entrepreneurship could be great.

But it’s harder to work for yourself, than to work for a boss, at least in my experience, there’s so much that comes into it in terms of accountability, there’s no one telling you what to do. There’s a million options, a million different directions, you can take your business, and it’s never complete. It’s always messy, constantly, everything has, there’s never been a moment in my business, where everything hasn’t felt like a complete mess, because you’re constantly iterating, especially online, everything can be changed at any moment in time, which is amazing. But also means your brain is like I should change that I should change that and just discerning what’s busy work and what’s actually important. What’s going to move the needle, how can I get out of my own way? What should I price this out? When should I offer this, like, there’s so much decision making that goes into it.

And it’s challenging, but I think the challenge is what makes it so rewarding. But I just wanted to mention that if you are thinking that entrepreneurship is going to be easier than working for someone else, even if it’s the worst boss, it’s so challenging to work for yourself, at least in my experience. And also in the experience of those I’ve learned from as well it doesn’t mean it’s not doable. But I just want to make sure that you are aware, it isn’t potentially as glamorous, as it seems to be when you’re just looking at 10 minutes of someone’s day on Instagram stories. So I’m gonna start at the beginning. I’m gonna kind of go quickly over the beginning bit though, because I do share it in previous episodes. And throughout this episode, I’m going to be referencing different episodes on the podcast that can help you dive into certain aspects of this because otherwise, I swear I could spend six hours recording this episode for you.

So I have gone through the archives of my podcast to pull out episodes that I think will be really helpful for you. If this is something you’re wanting to do. And if you’re wanting to get a bit more information, or a bit more advice on a certain topic or idea that I mentioned. So I started my blog in August 2013, it was called smart 20s. And for more backstory on this, you can go to episode three, which is called blogging, self doubt and how to get started I go into all of this there. But I started in August 2013. Long story short, I was full of self doubt, I got inspired to start my blog by listening to podcasts. But as soon as I bought my domain, I basically stopped listening to podcasts. I just completely shut down for about three months. And I’ve seen some of the members in perfectionist getting shit done doing this where they set this huge goal for themselves. And they’ve been saying, like I haven’t logged in for a month because it’s just been such a big goal.

So if that’s you, I really want you to get that it’s totally okay. If that’s been your reaction, it doesn’t mean you’re going to fail. And it’s completely okay but just make sure that if you have that you do eventually get yourself to go back into it but don’t create any kind of story around having that reaction to just shut down meaning that you’re not going to be successful because that’s what I did. I shut down for about three months I stopped listening to anything that would remind me about my blog that I hadn’t yet posted on. Eventually I got the courage to post. I hadn’t told a single soul. And it took me quite a few months to even tell anyone in my real life about it. Because I just felt so insecure, I thought, Who am I to be sharing anything at the time I was writing about how to make the most of your 20s. And my blog and my eyes was really the answer to this gap where there were people in their 20s saying, lLook at my perfect life. And people in their 20s saying, Oh, my God, I’m so broke and just whinging.

And I was like, Where are the people who aren’t perfect, and who don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but they’re trying really hard to figure it out. So that’s what I created, I didn’t even have enough of an opinion of myself and of personal development at the time that I would literally just share links to other people’s videos and posts. At the time I was sharing Steve Pavlina, and Mark and Angel and a few other personal development blogs that I really enjoyed. I was just sharing the link and been like, hey, this could be helpful. I found this really interesting. And then over time, and it was a long time, I eventually started to develop an opinion on personal development. And because I was doing my best to apply what I was learning although I was very much in my own way, I was eventually able to say, Hey, this is how I did x, this is how I did y and started to share a bit more of my own advice.

And I always have done that the best way I found to do that has been to think about documenting instead of creating this is an idea that Gary Vee talks about Gary Vaynerchuk. And when he when I heard him share this, it really cemented things for me. But when I was finding my voice with my blog, when I was trying to say you should do this, you should do that, like speaking in that tone, it was so challenging to create content, because you have to speak in such a generalized way in order for that to actually make sense. But when I was speaking in first person and saying, here’s what I did, maybe it’ll work for you, that was so much easier to just have this mentality that I’m documenting my journey and also Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, who has been a huge influence on my journey. And I was so grateful that I got to meet him in July 2017. And thank him for the impact that his work has had on my life. His blog, Smart Passive Income inspired the name, it’s not 20s.

But also I learned so much about the blogging world from him. And it was so, so important to have people like that, who was sharing advice. And some of the advice that he shared on one of his podcasts was that, you know, there are two different ways you can think about being an online creator, you can either be the kind of person that’s an expert, or you can be the kind of person that’s one or two steps ahead of your audience. And you’re just like, hey, here’s what I’m doing. And you’re kind of on the journey together, and you’re a few steps ahead of them. But you’re not the expert necessarily. You’re just sharing what you learn, you’re really documenting. And so when I heard about that being an option that really helped me to start to find my voice and to give myself permission. And I know that a lot of you listening, are wanting to start sharing things, but you think who am I to share this? I don’t know enough. There’s already someone who’s doing it better than me. Why would I be able to contribute anything. But I truly believe that people follow people not information.

So it doesn’t matter if other people are sharing the same information that you might be, trust me, I share a lot of information that is not original to me at all. But you’re listening to this because you connect with me and my story and you resonate with that. And so I might say something in a way that will click with you. But someone else will say and it doesn’t quite mesh. So it’s important to know that you don’t have to be this all knowing expert. In order to help people you don’t have to be perfect before you can help people, you can be just one or two steps ahead. And I found the easiest way to create content with that model is to really make sure I’m talking in first person when I was writing blog posts, which I don’t do currently. But whenever I was struggling or getting stuck it was because I was without realizing it writing in that other tend to view should do this. And I recommend this for you instead of being like, hey, here’s what I’m doing.

So that’s just a little tip that I have for you on that. So started my blog. I won’t go into again, more detail but episode 3 is where you can find that. And it took me about two and a half years to actually get out of my own way and put in a full effort. So in that time I was a uni student. So at the beginning of 2013 I lived in Montreal, for that Winter. And then I came home and I was listening to podcasts. And I was also a student at the University of Queensland here in Brisbane, I have a law degree, a commerce degree and a Diploma of French. So I did all of that. And I graduated from that in July 2015. And I got a job in insolvency accounting. So the whole time that I was blogging while at uni, I hadn’t told anyone, it took me as I said, so long to tell anyone about my blog, because I just felt so embarrassed and ashamed. And I was projecting all of my own negative thoughts onto everyone around me and just thought everyone else is going to be thinking the same thing that I’m thinking about myself, which didn’t turn out to be true.

But I was very convinced that that was the case. So I would work on my blog, instead of studying like hotel, whoever, like, Yeah, I’m just studying or I go into it at the library. And I just be working on it, I was doing a lot of busy work, a lot of formatting and fonts and colors and things that don’t actually matter too much. But I was still working on it and making progress. But between when I started and when I finished uni, I still hadn’t really made any kind of real progress. And I was very much in my own way. So in April 2016. That was when things really started to change. I’ve spoken about this on the podcast and on my Instagram before but that was when I just had this moment of like enough is enough, like, How long am I going to be in my own way for? This is so exhausting to just be struggling towards this without getting any results.

And so I decided that I was going to sign up for a blogging course, I signed up for your first 1k which is a course by Mariah Coz where you could learn how to get your first 1000 email subscribers and make your first $1,000 by creating and selling an online course. So I did that, in April 2016 is when I signed up I think Philly met Jen Berger, who is from Simply Fiercely who I have mentioned quite a few times on the podcast. But I also convinced her that she should launch an online course at the same time as me so that we could go through it together. And we only had just met up once she messaged me, I think it was on Twitter, like hey, we’re both in Brisbane, when I get back from my travels, do you want to get a coffee. And so we did. And we just hit it off right away for me like it was one of the first times I met someone who was actually doing what I was doing and really got it and I was like, Hey, let’s do an online course together like our own separate ones. But let’s just be on this journey together.

So I invested in that. And I started waking up early and working on my blog before going to work. So my full time job was in insolvency accounting, which I kind of just fell into. After uni I did some different vacation work in tax accounting and different things even though I didn’t actually study accounting at uni, but with Law and Commerce, I majored in Finance, you can do like tax accounting and insolvency accounting. Anyway, I won’t go into that. But I ended up doing that because I realized I didn’t want to work in law. And I didn’t really know where I’d fit in the finance world. And I had a friend who was working in this other area. And I thought, well, she doesn’t seem to think it’s too bad. So maybe I’ll do that. So I ended up getting a job in insolvency accounting.

And for that first like year while I was there with the blog, I obviously didn’t tell anyone about it because I was still so embarrassed about it. But also I was trying to work on my blog after I got home from work. And I don’t know how many of you have have worked in that kind of corporate job where you have a timesheet, but we had six minute timesheets, which means you have to document every six minute increments of your day, from when we started at 830 to when you finish at 5pm. Or whatever time it ends up that you start and finish. You have to incrementally document every single thing you do. And so that was a very draining job in a lot of ways. I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t horrible. I enjoy the people that I worked with. I enjoy that I could go and get cups of tea and it was in the city and I could go to the gym nearby and it wasn’t this horrible situation.

But I was really there being like, yeah, I can do this job, but I’m not the best person at this job. And I don’t particularly enjoy telling people they’ve lost their life savings or that we’ve just frozen their company bank accounts. And I just had this real sense that it wasn’t for me and wasn’t what I wanted to end up doing. And also as well, when I was there, I didn’t want to tell anyone about the blog because I was giving the impression that I was going to stay there because they do invest in training you. And that kind of thing I did put off doing my chartered accountant stuff, because I knew I didn’t want to be an accountant, and it kept coming up in all my reviews, like when are you going to start and I just kept coming up with reasons to keep delaying and delaying and delaying it. And so luckily, I was able to never actually start that.

So I was working in insolvency accounting at one of the big accounting firms in Brisbane. And I just started waking up in April 2016. When I was like this is not working doing it after work, I’m so drained at the end of the day. Plus as Steve plus as me trying to work out, plus have a social life like this just isn’t working. So I was like, okay, the only way to get that time is to actually make it the first thing that I do in the day to do something for myself before I do something for my boss, which is an idea that I heard on Myleik Teele’s podcast. So I started doing that. And I just made that decision. When I invested in her course, Mariah Coz’s course that I wasn’t going to keep trying to piece together free advice from Pinterest about how to do it. And I was just going to do what she said, because that was where I signed up, because she obviously knew something that I didn’t know, because I had been struggling for so long and wasn’t getting any kind of result.

And so it’s so important to do that I talk about the power of investing in yourself investing in coaches investing in courses. But if you’re doing that without actually committing to following the advice, and if you’re doing that with like, you have like a blend it with this person and that person and that person, like sure, once you’ve got a certain level of mastery over something, you can start blending people’s things together. But I see this quite a lot where someone will buy like two different blogging courses that will be teaching very different approaches. And it’s kind of like this self sabotage, because you set yourself up to fail, because you’re trying to follow two people that are teaching very different methods. And it’s really powerful to know that a lot of times when someone’s teaching something on a course, it works, but you have to do what they say.

So if you are trying to mix and match it with all sorts of other things, you’re probably not going to get the results, some genius, people can mix it together and get an even better result than any of those people did. But if you’re just getting started my recommendation, and I’ve recommended this quite a lot of times when it comes to personal development, also entrepreneurship, to find one person that you’re like, I get it, I like the way you say it. I like the way you teach. And it really seems applicable to me. And then at least for three months, just be like, I’m just learning from you. I’m just following your methods. Because it’s so easy to get overwhelmed with all the different strategies, particularly if you listen to any podcasts that are very strategy based like five new opt ins you need for your email list and all this kind of stuff where it ends up being like, wait, how can I actually apply all of this.

So I just wanted to mention that if you’re investing in courses and coaching and things like that, but you’re not getting results, most likely, it’s because you’re either not doing what they say, or you’re trying to blend it and keep yourself confused by trying to fuse it all together. But again, I recommend just finding one teacher and being like, Okay, I’m just going to follow what you say for the next three months and see how it goes. Instead of being like, wait, I need to follow everyone and try and get all of their different approaches to fit into one perfect cohesive approach. And then I’m going to do that. So that was something that was really powerful for me investing in that course and being like, I’m just going to do what she says, like she says to pre sell the course, I’m going to pre sell the course. Even thoug that scares the shit out of me. She said to optimize your site for email opt ins, I’m going to do that.

So I was actually like, I had already intellectually known a lot of the things that were in that course. But it’s because I paid money. I think it was about 400 Australian, which is a lot of money to me. So I really committed and then I did the things that I knew I should be doing. But I actually did them and they actually got results. So I did her course and then I started getting I think it was about 50 email subscribers a week and it kept growing after that. And I was like, oh my god like this actually works if I put in effort. And as I’ve spoken about perfectionist, we try to withhold efforts so we can blame lack of effort for lack of results instead of having to blame ourselves. So I just come out of two and a half years of withholding effort. And me doing this course and in 2016 I didn’t take my foot fully off the brake so I’d had one foot on the accelerator before but I still have my other foot on the brake.

I just started in 2016 to ease my other foot off the brake so that I could actually like I really remember it clearly, like I just started to get this sense of like, wait, there’s actually momentum here, it was such a small amount compared to what it is now. But I was like, Oh, this is actually moving forward. So a few episodes. If you want to dive into any more of that there’s Episode 16, which is what to expect when you start a creative project, which I think is so important, because we tend to have this idea that I’m going to hit publish, and then 1000s of people will flock to my blog or to my Instagram page. And then when that doesn’t happen, we get very disappointed and deterred and we quit. But if you can have this different mindset where you’re really like, Okay, I’m in this for the long game, probably no one’s gonna read it for a little while, or like my posts for a little while or whatever.

But I’m going to show up for the sake of developing my voice and having this creative project and having that mentality or if it’s a podcast, to just keep, it’s important that you do publish it, you don’t keep it secret, like you can do what I did, and keep it secret from people in your real life. But I mean, don’t keep it completely off the internet, it’s really powerful to actually publish and hit live instead of just writing blog posts or recording podcast episodes, and never actually showing them to be publishing. But it’s okay if people aren’t reading it or listening in to actually really savor that time where you can just be in this playground of figuring out your voice and figuring out what you want to share. And know that action creates clarity. It’s not not publishing that’ll create clarity or thinking about it that will create clarity, it’s action that creates clarity, like I didn’t even know as a perfectionist when I started my blog. But by going through the process I’ve been through, I realized that was the mindset that was keeping me stuck, and I learn more about it.

And then I realized that’s what I wanted to talk about. And that’s how we’ve gotten here. But if I just been trying to think about the perfect niche for me, and my niche could change. But if I’d been trying to think about that, from the beginning, I would not have chosen this because I did not know this was even a thing. So episode 16. Episode 33 is about how to balance your side hustle with your full time job where I talk a little bit more about how I did that what it looked like, then Episode 112, I share five decisions that changed me and my business forever. And in that episode, I talk more about the decisions to invest in myself. But that period of my life was very challenging. So from April 2016, until when I left my job, which I’ll go more detail into that about soon. But that was March 2017. That was a really challenging year for me, my life was imbalanced or anywhere close to it, like my life still isn’t balanced. I don’t think that’s what I’m anyone should even try and aim for.

But definitely then I was really leaning hard into having blogging being my first priority, which didn’t mean I spent the most time blogging. But it did mean that I chose it over other things. It meant that I was sleep deprived, that was mainly what I was choosing it over sleep. But then it also meant, in a way I was choosing over relationships, because I would say no to going to parties and different things, or gatherings and events because I was working on my blog and really wanted to keep progressing it. And also because I was sleep deprived, I was a bit snappy and not my best self. And that I’m sure had an impact on my relationships. But I just had this belief that if I could just keep showing up like it wasn’t going to have to be like that forever.

And it could be this temporary like there was a light at the end of my of the tunnel. Like if I just persist with this. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know when I’ll get out of this period. But I know that I just need to persist. Like if I persist, I will succeed. That is a belief that has really carried me through so much of my journey. I really credit that belief with everything that I have today because that kept me going when no one was reading my blog, when barely anyone was listening to my podcast and I started my podcast at the end of 2017. Not that long ago, but still, I hardly had anyone listening to it like it’s so such an empowering belief to just believe like, I just need to keep going I just need to keep going. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know how everything’s gonna happen but I will not give up.

So that was really powerful to have that. And also, I invested in a coach for the second half of 2016. So I worked with Jen Carrington for six months. And that was really helpful just to have someone there who could kind of help me keep on track. And I could bounce ideas off and who could see my thinking. And actually, it was just so empowering. When I was telling her like, I wanted to go full time in my business at some point and what she was already doing, and to just have her be like, yeah, that’s completely normal. Like, it’s why I love coaching so much myself, because to just be able to have someone normalize something that you think is so crazy, like, it’s, it’s incredibly powerful. So that was really great to have that we finished up working together at the end of 2016.

And when was it the right time to leave my full time job? I didn’t know it was the right time when I left, but there are kind of a few pieces that went into that. So I had been putting a real effort into my blog, as I said, since April 2016. But I had only made a few $1,000 at that time. So I launched my course dream habit, which was the one I created while doing Moriah Coz’s Your First 1k course. I launched that in September, and I made I think about $3,000, I had 20 people sign up, roughly. So that was about the only money that I had made. And then I had a few other sales of dream habit here and there. But it wasn’t like when I left my full time job, my business or my blog was successful, I was still not really making any money whatsoever, I didn’t really have a plan of how to make money, or what I could offer, there wasn’t many ways people could give me money.

But I actually one thing that really helped was I looked at the financial situation that I was in and figured out what would need to happen to support myself from the blog. And as I’m going to talk about, I’ve had to do this multiple times and actually keep iterating on this. But I had this moment, I’m pretty sure from memory, it was October, November 2016, where I was just like, Okay, I really want to leave my full time job. But I’m not actually doing anything about leaving my full time job. Like I don’t even literally know how much money the business is making at this point. I don’t know how much I’d even need to make an order to support myself, like I’m not keeping track of my finances. I at the time signed up for a program called rounded, which is like fresh books, but for Australian businesses. And so I signed up for that and actually started keeping track of the numbers. And I cannot, I cannot emphasize enough how important this is.

If you are in business, and you are complaining about not making money, or not being as successful as you want to be or not even complaining, you’re just like, I wish I was more successful. And yet you’re not actually looking at your numbers, you need to do that. Because why would you be able to make more money and actually keep that money and make an impact with that money. If you don’t know what you’ve got, we tend to think, Oh, I’ll be better with money when I have more of it. It doesn’t work that way. You really need to actually take ownership, even if I know a lot of us, not myself, but I love numbers. But a lot of people are like, I’m not good with numbers. That’s not my thing. I just can’t do that. And I’ve had like some of my clients say, Oh, well, it’s different for you because you have a finance degree, they did not teach me anything in that finance degree that is helping me with my business finances, it’s a very different thing.

So it’s easy to look at others and be like, Oh, they had this different experience. I will say I am 90 with numbers. I’ve always loved looking at my bank account and all of that. But it’s still so important. If you want to make more money, take care of what you already have. Be aware of what you already have, regardless of if you’re in business or not in business, if your financial situation isn’t exactly what you want it to be. And I don’t mean what you can expect it to be. But like think about what you dream ever been if your financial situation isn’t that way, it means you need to really start getting familiar with your numbers and the situation you’re actually in instead of just going in blindly like fingers crossed. I hope this works out because I coach different women who have businesses and a lot of times like they’ll be making money, but there’s actually spending all the money and they can’t tell me how many students they have a where the money is coming from or what their expenses are. And it’s like but you need to know this especially if you’re wanting to grow to that next level.

So for me, I just realized then like wait, okay, I need to actually do something about my finances because this is out of alignment that I’m wanting to leave my full time job but I’m actually not doing anything to help myself with that. So I just had a look at the situation I can’t remember, besides signing up for rounded and actually keeping track of things, what I did if I came up with a certain figure that I needed to make, I can’t actually remember, but I’m trying maybe talked about it previously, if I did, but that was a really important step, because that kind of began this mentality that okay, maybe it is possible, I have no idea how to make that much money, or how I can support myself. But it’s actually like bringing it into reality by getting clear on the numbers. So at the end of 2016, I read Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss a book, which I have talked about ad nauseam. And it’s really great book, highly recommend reading it. And I love when you guys tag me on Instagram, I’m @samlaurabrown with the book and it’s full of tabs. And it just makes my day to see that you guys are reading the books that I recommend.

So if you’ve been reading something a recommended, and you haven’t told me, please tell me because I love it. So in that book, he has an exercise called fear setting, which is where you really create clarity around your fears, so that you can move past them. So I did that exercise, which really revealed to me that I wasn’t actually scared of what people think I was scared of the negative impact that going full time in my business might have on my relationship with Steve. And when I actually saw that for the first time, I was like, wow, that doesn’t actually make much sense. Like that’s not a really good reason to stay stuck. And at the same time, as recommended in Tools of Titans, I started writing out an affirmation 15 times a day. That was I will celebrate the last day at my full time job on 30, June 2017, or sooner. And if you want to know more about affirmations I shared in Episode 24, how I use affirmations and my affirmation routine. You can also have a look on my Instagram in the profile highlights. There’s one I think it might be the habits one one of them where I share my affirmation routine currently. But episode 24 is a great place to start because I share the fundamentals.

By the way, all of these episodes will be linked in the show notes, which will be at samlaurabrown.com/episode125. So I did those two things in combination. And that was what really kick things off. Because when I was writing that affirmation initially, I just felt like a complete idiot, because there was no way I was going to be able to leave my full time job. And then I was reading You’re a Badass by Jen Sincero. And just one normal sentence in the book about I think it was how a waiter could or how an actor could wait tables. And do that while pursuing acting like it had this lightbulb moment. For me, I was like, Oh, my goodness, I could just go back to the part time job I had as a uni student, instead of having to, you know, make this leap into full time blogging, I could have this interim step. And if I hadn’t been writing out that affirmation, I know for sure that I would not have had that revelation. Because it was just such a normal sentence. It wasn’t anything profound. But I had been training my brain and telling it, hey, this is something that is important. And this is something that’s going to happen.

This is a belief that I’m gonna leave my or celebrate the last day at my full time job. And so our reticular activating system in our brain is like, Okay, I’m gonna start looking for ways to make that happen. So what’s really important is I had that revelation, and then I acted on it. For those of you guys who are writing out affirmations, you have to act on those nudges and ideas that come up, if you’re writing out an affirmation, which I know a lot of you guys are. And then you’re not taking action, when you have an inspired idea or this moment of insight, you’re not going to make progress, like the magic in the affirmation is that it gets your brain to filter the data around you in reality around you in a different way. But then when an idea pops up, you have to act on it. Otherwise, it’s not going to work. So that came up and I realized that I could email one of my friends who was working at the hospital where I had a part time job as Uni student.

And she emailed me back and said, Here are some that are available, but none of them are a great fit. I was like okay, well maybe this wasn’t meant to be or we’ll see I’ll just leave it for a little while. Maybe I’ll need to stay here a bit longer. And then I’d said to her like, this is the job I want. And it’s so powerful to do that to say this is what I want instead of like, I’m not really sure what kind of job like I want the these hours on these days of the week like this specific job. And the next week she emailed me it was that specific job that I had hoped would come up I called the manager I explained I didn’t know her but I explained my situation and I used to work there that I had a bit Isn’t it and I wanted to come back and I went in for an interview and I got that job. And I got it on the day like after the interview, they just said, Yeah, let’s like, Can you can you work for us. So that was really great. But it was from taking that inspired action. And I still had a lot of fear around it. But it just was like magic, the way it all lined up.

And then I handed in my resignation, that beginning of Feb. And I had resigned my last day was on March 10 2017. So even though I was writing the affirmation out about leaving at the end of June, and this is like the same thing that I’m going to be sharing that’s happened, this time leaving my part time job. As soon as you set that date, like, your brain gets into gear and finds a way to actually make it happen. It’s so cool that both times when I’ve done this, I set a target that’s like six months away, and then it’s been able to happen in three months. So I’m going to be sharing more on that in a little bit about what the situation has looked like while leaving my part time job. But that was kind of how I left my full time job. And I just wanted to remind you that the grass isn’t always greener. And when you’re in a full time job, it can be really easy to resent it to resent the time it consumes and to resent the commute and to resent the people. But you’re going to take your brain with you to whatever comes next in your life.

So if you’re resenting your job, you might think oh, no, I’ll just get a different job will be around different people and my thoughts will change. I’ll feel differently, but our brains are very habitual. And if you have a certain pattern of thinking or a certain focus that you’re always focusing on, what can I resent? And how can I feel bad today and all these kinds of things that we’re not asking ourselves consciously, but subconsciously, you will take that brain with you to your part time job to your business. And you will end up resenting your business resenting your clients or resenting your products, resenting the technology, like it’s so important to really recognize that you might have some cleaning up to do around your full time job or part time job. And I shared in Episode 49, what to do when you hate your job, which is really important and powerful. And I’ve had a lot of you say that episode has been a game changer and that you’re doing that work, and Episode 78, why it will never get better than this. Both really important episodes, because we tend to think all the grass is greener, I’m going to be so much happier, like for sure I was thinking, I’m going to be so much happier when I have more time for my business, I’m going to be so much happier when I’m eventually full time in my business.

And I can tell you that even though I love what I do, I love that I’m just sitting here chatting to you on the podcast, and that this is going to be sent all over the world and I’m so passionate about what I do. And I’m able to make money from an all of that, I still have a lot of negative emotion in my life. Like it’s that idea that life is 5050 positive emotion, negative emotion, even if we’re living our dream life, our brain, like we’re still gonna have negative thoughts. And we don’t want to feel happy about everything. We don’t want to feel, you know, happy that someone’s abused or happy that someone’s died. Like we’re not, it’s not helpful to aspire to being happy all the time. But I don’t think like if I really think about it, I don’t know that I feel happier now than when I was working full time in insolvency accounting, I definitely feel fulfilled.

But that’s because I’m having different thoughts to what I was having then. But it didn’t serve me to be thinking, Oh, my life is going to be so much better. And I talked about this. In the episode I did about what it’s really like to have a six figure business because for the longest time I had that on a pedestal and I thought, when I have that six figure business, that’s going to change everything. And now I’m here I’m like, I feel the same. So I just want to remind you not to be a downer about it, but just to like enjoy the journey, because it’s not going to magically feel different when you get to where you want to go. But what actually makes life incredible is when you really show up and engage with the process of achieving the goals that you want to achieve. Because as you know, as soon as we set goals and achieve them, we then just set another goal. And we’re always in that pursuit. So we may as well learn how to enjoy that pursuit.

And for me, I didn’t really know about doing the work and cleaning up my thinking about my full time job. And so when I left my full time job and made that transition, I ended up resenting different parts of my business and I kind of brought that same thinking with me. And I’ve had to do a lot of that work around my part time job as well, which I’m going to share. So I just wanted to mention that episode. 49 and 78 are going to be really helpful if you know you kind of resenting your current situation. And also something I want to mention too, is that if you think your problem is lack of time it probably isn’t. I thought my problem was lack of time. And then as soon as I got the time, I realized that I had just been using that as an excuse to justify my lack of success. Because when I got more time, I just went straight into busy work, because it felt so uncomfortable to have this time and to not know what to do with it. So I just went into busy work again, formatting, focusing on things that weren’t really that important, not doing the things that were important.

And I really believe that when we think we have lack of time as the issue, it’s usually more often than not, I’d say, 100% of the time, a mind management issue, because often when we complain about lack of time, we’re not actually using the time we do have effectively. So I just want you to think, have you been complaining or lamenting about lack of time? And are you actually making the best use of the time you do have, because we tend to complain about lack of time or blame lack of time, and yet we procrastinate. And so when you can see that disconnected, it’s important to be like, Hey, wait, maybe lack of time isn’t the real issue. Maybe I’m just using that as a cover. Because I’m scared to say, Hey, I’m not actually maybe I’m not good enough. And to let all of those negative thoughts come up, it’s better to be like, oh, you know, I’d be more successful if I wasn’t procrastinating. Or if I have more time, if I didn’t have this full time job, because I looked at full time bloggers and was like, Oh, it’s so much easier for them, because they’ve got all this time. But that’s not true.

It is not easier just because you have more time. And I will tell you a bit more about that once, like what it looked like for me once I entered part time live. But I just wanted to quickly talk about what preparations I made to make that leap from full time to part time. So I got that part time job at the hospital. That was really helpful. And I actually didn’t need to make any financial preparations as my part time income was only $100 less per week than my full time income had been, which is kind of crazy and really blew my mind. And that was what really solidified it for me when I was thinking about making this leap from full time work to part time that I was in insolvency accounting at a reputable firm. And I had a law degree a finance degree, a Diploma of French. And I was making about $10 less per hour than I was able to make as an unskilled quote unquote, because you don’t need a degree and unskilled receptionist like I could make more money plus the job I wanted, which I had told my friend had an after hours element.

So it was in the afternoon from 4pm to 8pm. And I got a penalty. So with that penalty, and also the extra the hourly rate, I was able to basically earn the same except with the part time job I had the whole day free until 3pm. And I work better in the morning. So that was great for me. And I didn’t have to do these six minute timesheets, I was actually able to go to a job where I didn’t have this stress and pressure and a job where there weren’t these projects that were continuing with me like when I was in accounting, you have certain jobs you’re working on. And they’re your tasks to do until you then move it up the line. And so if you’re not there for a day, your work is just waiting for you when you come back. But in the admin job, there’s just you go in, you do what needs to be done. And there’s a whole relief pool. So if you can’t go in, then someone else has a job. And it’s just so much less stressful.

So it just blew my mind that I could work in that different situation and get only a small amount less per week. Of course, there’s different progression in those two careers, but to serve my purpose of having a job that could support me, but also where I could use my brain, my mental energy, for the things that were most important to me like that allowed me to use and conserve my mental energy so that I had it for my business and to spend the first part of my day doing that. And I just go into my part time job in the afternoon, instead of spending one hour in the morning on my business and then going into this job that was very demanding and draining and really required a lot more focus and a lot more attention and a lot more work as well. So that was kind of the preparations I made. There wasn’t really much that needed to happen for that transition.

So what did my life look like once I quit my full time job and into part time life? So I spent the first few months during busy work as I said, because I just felt so uncomfortable and I obviously I left my full time job. So I told people like hey, I’m leaving because I have this blog. And obviously like I wasn’t saying this. But obviously for me to leave my full time job, I thought it would be successful. And I just felt like, all eyes were on me, which was not the case. But I just was like, oh my goodness, like, what if I really give this a try, and it doesn’t succeed. And so I spent so long doing work, that didn’t really matter. And because I wasn’t putting in a full effort, like I was constantly busy, I had very full days. But I wasn’t putting in a full effort, I still wasn’t making much money. So I incorporated as smart 20 years PT way Ltd, in July 2017. So up until that point, I had been a sole trader, and I get us quite a lot, or it comes out with my coaching clients as well, like at what point should you incorporate, and I obviously can’t give legal advice or financial advice on this podcast.

But the decision process I went through was, I want to actually start making real money. And so if that’s the case, it makes sense, tax wise, like I did different tax objects in my law degree. And I worked in insolvency accounting, where that was an element of it too. And I thought, okay, if I want to make money, it makes more sense, tax wise to be incorporated. Plus, Steve and I are planning to buy a house. So it gives that separation between the business and the house so that if something happened with the business, it wouldn’t jeopardize the house and whatever. So that was something that I did. And until that point, I just been a sole trader, I had my own, like, I was just putting everything in my own bank account. And then I think I initially opened up some bank accounts. But because I was sole trader, they’re still in my name, but some business bank accounts. And now then when I incorporated, you need to open company account, they still come up, like when I log into my bank website, they still all come up together.

And I’m explaining this because I get so many questions. And I love hearing about how people have their accounts and stuff. But when I log in, it’s all there like it looks like it’s all my money. But half of it or a certain number of accounts are the company’s money, which I’m like they are not my money. And then there’s my personal accounts in there. So I wanted to mention this because I know a lot of people use lack of financial knowledge as a reason to put off getting started. And I think I don’t know what kind of company to start or bank accounts or accounting, you don’t need to know that like I made money, before I had a special bank account to put it into, I did actually always have a separate bank account because I wanted to reinvest that money and to not spend it on anything except anything business related.

Actually, I think initially, I didn’t even spend on anything business related. I just had it there separately, and then I invested in everything from my own money from my normal income, and then eventually, I started to reinvest that money. So actually, this next week will be the first week I ever pay myself a real dollar from my business, which will be six years after starting it. So until this point, everything I’ve done for my business has been unpaid, like the company’s made money, but I haven’t personally made money. So if you’re thinking, I don’t know what to do with setting up a company and account, just start and know that you can figure that stuff out later. It’s all good. You don’t need to have the perfect plan before you get going. I remember too though, when I, I had called the accountant who my coach had recommended, and her I’ll talk about him in a little a second. But I had called her and said, You know, I wanted to like incorporate and talking about the pros and cons, which I highly recommend if you’re thinking of that to talk to a professional.

And she said, how much do you expect to make in the next financial year. And my goal had been $100,000. This was before I set my impossible goal. And I told her $100,000 Not because I was like so confident. But I thought if I’m actually going to make it I need to start acting as if that’s true and saying that. And so I said that and I just remember feeling like such an idiot. But now that I am making that amount, it’s just funny, but I just remember being like, oh yeah. $100,000 And I’m sure she was like What are you talking about? But it doesn’t matter. It’s fine to say stuff like that, like the world keeps spinning. And yeah, it was just so powerful for me to say that and to feel myself squirm and to be like, Well, I really don’t believe that yet. I have so much work to do.

So for that year as well, like in that transition after I left my full time job, I was selling my course Dream Habit not making many sales, and then I made the first version of get out of your own way, in November 2017. So that is the mini version of what is now the full version of get out of your own way. And I was really struggling with my identity as an entrepreneur. And as someone who was actually able to lead people and to inspire people tend to have an opinion. And that’s something I’m still, I would say, I’m still getting my mind around that. Because to me, I just feel like an entrepreneur’s in a certain way. And I’m not that way when that isn’t actually the case. But it’s doing that self image work and getting that into alignment to be like, Yes, I am an entrepreneur, because it’s so important. It doesn’t seem maybe significant. But if you don’t believe you can have a successful business and you can be an entrepreneur, you will self sabotage. So you can be right about the fact you’re not an entrepreneur. And that’s definitely what I was doing.

So the second half of 2017, I was working with a coach. So as I said, I worked with a coach at the end of 2016. And I had about six months of like, I don’t know who to work with next. And then I worked with a man named Kitt, who I met at a personal development event, and he just happened to be another participant there. And we got along really well. He’s like, Hey, can you coach me, and I worked with him for about six months, and he really helped me get out of my own way and create a lot of confidence. Well, I wouldn’t say a lot but creating more confidence than I had. And that was really powerful. But I stopped working with him because I felt like I really needed someone who understood online business. And he was kind of just he was a great coach. But when it came to the technical side of the business, he wasn’t able to, like help me bounce around ideas, because he just didn’t have that context for how an online business works. And what an online product is, and what launching is, and what Instagram is, and all of that.

So I finished up with him in November 2017. And that was so great to work with him. And I also signed up for Brooke Castillo’s, membership self coaching scholars in September 2017. So when I made that decision to start working with Kitt, I kind of be like, Okay, well, I have self coaching scholars. And even though in that it’s self directed in a lot of ways, there’s still coaching calls and things, but I felt like I at least had something there to support me. And I’m still a member of that, which is two years later. And it’s why I’m so passionate about perfectionist getting shit done my membership, because I know how powerful it can be to be part of a community of people who are working on themselves and who you can relate to and getting that direction. And even though like it took me nine months to sign up for her program, because I’ve been listening to her podcast, and when she announced it, I was like, oh, no, I just listened to the podcast and pretend I paid for it. Then I tried that. And I really just wasn’t getting the kind of results I wanted to get. And then I went into her membership, which is 400 ish Australian dollars per month, a little bit more than that at the moment with the exchange rate.

And it was a huge investment. For me, it’s like $100 a week. But I just knew that it was so important to invest in my mindset and my personal growth. And it’s really what inspired me to start, perfection is getting shit done, PGSD. And yeah, I’m so grateful that I did sign up for that. And then I’m still part of it, because it really has a lot of you know, I do teach a lot of concepts that I’ve learned from Brooke Castillo. And I just find the way that she teaches incredibly powerful. So that’s been a huge part of my journey. I do not know if I would be where I am today without her podcast and also been part of that membership. But really not much happened in the first year after going full time in my business, I mean not full time after leaving my full time job. So I was just still really in my own way. As I said before, like I had my foot on the accelerator, but I had my foot on the brake and I just taken off a bit but not fully. So I still have my foot on the brake quite a bit.

So then now we’re at July 2018, so about a year ago and this is why personal development is so much fun because I was talking about this with my coach Aaron, who I’m gonna mention in a second. I was saying to her like, like I had my first coaching call with you a year ago and so much has changed. And it’s just so much fun to look back one year and really recognize how much has changed because when I was in my accounting job, I would look back a year and be like wow, I’m sitting at the same desk or maybe I’m a couple over basically the same people are here a few people have come a few people have left I’m working on very similar jobs like it was very same same. And to now been into personal development and business like entrepreneurship is the most powerful personal development tool in my opinion, which is why I talk about it so much on the podcast, that I can look back a year and be like, wow, like a lot has happened in this last year.

And not a lot happened the year before. But it all needed to happen in order to have the last year that I have had. So it’s really important not to be like, oh, you know, I wish things hadn’t been that way. I wish they’d been different. I wish I’d turn up more like no, that all had to happen that way for me to get here. And what I teach, really, in my business is a lot of what I had to go through personally in the first three to four years of my business, and also more recently, but I’ve learned so much like that’s what really created my understanding of what getting your own way feels like and what what it feels like to be stuck in procrastination and, and really how powerful it is and to get people and tools to help pull you out of that.

So that has been all it’s all been important. And I don’t wish it had gone any quicker or that I was further ahead. Because it would be so easy to be like, Oh, wow, if I just hadn’t been in my own way for so long. Like I could have really like been on Instagram when the algorithm was the old way and really just, you know, gotten myself in there the right time instead of just never posting but that had to happen for me to be who I am today and to teach the people and have the impact that I’m having. So it’s really important. Like we can’t change the past. So we may as well tell ourselves an empowering story about it and for sure, take lessons, but to not have it be oh well. I wasted that time because when we have this thought I wasted time. We tend to misuse the time that we do have.

So July 2018. Also, by the way, I started doing my personal growth updates in there were called life updates initially in June 2018. So if you did want to go back and like hear more detail about all of this, I kind of mentioned it in every personal growth update added at the end of each month, so you can go back and listen to them in order, and that’ll really give you a picture of the journey as it happened. And I’m trying my very best to recall things factually, but as you know, memory tends to warp things, which is why I wanted to record this, as I’m literally in the week of making this transition into full time entrepreneurship, because the details of what’s happened recently are fresh, but even so it’s really challenging to remember all the details of everything and and really look at, okay, what was significant and what actually didn’t make an impact.

But I’m just sharing, you know, if we were having a chai latte, what I’d be telling you about my journey. So in July 2018, I had a one off coaching session with Erin MayHenry, who is now my coach. And I just felt like something’s missing. I have, I think I had, I want to say maybe 10,000 email subscribers, and I had an audience, my audience was growing, my following was growing on Instagram, because I had started to share my own quotes. And I’d also started to put some money into promoting or boosting the quotes on Instagram as well. And I was like, for someone who has especially email this way, this size email list, I should be making more money than I am. And I can’t remember exactly what I was making. But I think for the first half of 2018, I shared this in my final update on my impossible goal, which was episode, what was it? I haven’t got it here. I think it was episode 79 off the top of my head, but I go into all of the numbers from 2018. And I think in the first half of the year, I made 18,000, I ended up in 2018, making about 60. So I hadn’t made very much money considering the size of my audience at that point in time.

And I just felt like I needed someone’s outside perspective, to show me like what I couldn’t see. Because when you’re in the business, it’s so challenging, to really get that outsider perspective and to see how someone would experience your brand and your business. And I just needed a fresh pair of eyes to be like, Hey, this is what’s missing. So I had that one off call with her. And she was just like, I have no idea what you do. Like I’ve looked at your you know, your Facebook, your blog, your Instagram, like, I don’t know what you do. And that was like, I’m so grateful. She said that. Because I didn’t know it wasn’t clear that I talked about perfectionism. She was like, if if you were on my podcast, what would we chat about? What would you be interviewed about? And immediately, I was like perfectionism, like, that’s what I talk about. She’s like, well, I don’t know that from anything.

Like, I can’t see anything about that on your website, on your Instagram page. Like, it’s just very vague what you do, like, I don’t know, how you could really help me like, yeah, you help women in their 20s. But like, what were them, what do you do and, and so that really was so powerful for me like the best use of my money to get that insight because I had thought it was clear. And so what we came up with was rebranding. So as you know, now I go by Sam Laura Brown. So my name is Samantha Brown, Sam Brown, but it’s such a common name. So I needed to use my middle name. And as well that I thought about rebranding to my own name. But I’d always been like, you know, what, what is it going to be because it’s already multiple, multiple famous Sam Browns. And I’m not going to be like Samantha Laura Brown, because that’s too much of a mouthful, and I don’t go by Samantha. And obviously for Erin. Her branding is Erin May Henry, which is her full name but I just hadn’t really thought of what it could look like and she was like well, you could just be Sam Laura Brown.

And initially I was like that just sounds weird. Like no one ever would ever ever ever call me Sam Laura Brown because you’re like saying my middle name but not saying my full first name like I just know. But then I was like, Oh no, it’s kind of easy to say like you can hear each word is distinct and like maybe that could work and there’s no other Sam Laura Browns. So I basically had that call with her and I had this huge list of things I wanted to do. I wanted to update my website and rebrand it so that I had not only like my new logo, which by the way I created myself in Canva, you do not need to spend time in your business. On a logo, I mean, some businesses maybe like if you have a physical product, but for an online business, please don’t waste any time getting fancy with logos. So my current logo is just literally my name in Playfair display font. And that’s it.

So anyway, I just wanted to create a new website and get that done. And then I also had a lot of fear around, transferring my emails over to a new address, and also my instagram handle and all of that, but I just set myself deadlines, this is so powerful to do. Because when we’re making changes, it is easy to just be like, Oh, well, yeah, when it’s perfect, I’ll publish it, but I just had, okay, this is a date, it’s gonna be live, no matter what. And then when I had that date, I could work backwards, I found so I changed over the website theme that I had. And I needed to figure out how to get all the content from my smart 20s website over to the new one. So I went on to Upwork, which is somewhere that you can find freelancers, and I found a woman named Neha, who was going to be able to help me do that.

And previously, I had used a theme from pipdig, I’m just mentioning this detail in case it’s helpful. So I had used a theme from Pipdig, P-I-P-D-I-G. And I really love the brand, station seven, they do really beautiful themes for WordPress and Squarespace are about 100 bucks. And from being in this area for so long, I’ve really seen that you can spend a lot of money on a website, which I’ve never personally done, and end up with a really hideous website. Or you could also do that and end up with a beautiful website. But there are so many beautiful themes that you can do that. And even if you want to get someone to customize it a little bit, you can, but you don’t need this huge, like custom site. And when I see people rebrand to custom sites, if they’ve had a developer and they’ve spent 1000s and 1000s.

In my eyes, at least the website doesn’t look that much better than whatever theme they sell for $100. So that’s my advice, if you’re wanting theme advice. So I wanted to change to one from station seven, I got Neha to help with the transfer of the data over. And we also tweaked the design a tiny little bit, there were just a few things I wanted to change. So I got her to do that for me. And I think, in total, it cost me less than $100, for her to make those changes. And if you’re paying a developer to do a full site from scratch, like I think my website looks pretty good. And it’s pretty easy to navigate, for sure, there’s room for improvement. But to have that happen for about $200, I think is pretty good value. So just wanted to say you don’t need a lot of money for a fancy website or anything like that. So we did that. And that was really powerful to actually have that rebrand. And I was gonna end up calling the podcast still the smart 20s podcast, I didn’t know what to call it, I don’t want to call it like anything with my name in it, it just felt a bit off.

And then as soon as I was doing the new website, and I had the old image, I was like this doesn’t actually fit anymore. So I came up with the name. And I designed like the podcast cover you see, I designed that myself in Canva, C-A-N-V-A. And I came up with like six designs and sent them to a few of my friends that I think have good taste in design and said like which of these six do you think’s the best, and they all kind of chose different ones. So I was like, great, it doesn’t really matter. This is the one I like. And the photo you can see on my podcast is actually just a selfie I took in my bedroom. And I was against a white wall and I’m sitting on a chair and it’s kind of like whited out a little bit at the side like so you don’t need to have anything fancy. Just a little reminder.

So that was one amazing thing that came out of that coaching call. Another one was that she really helped me give myself permission to start offering coaching services because I had been like, I know I don’t have my life together enough to be a coach. And also, I believed that I was naturally good at coaching. I’ve always been the friend that people come to for advice. And I’ve always kind of played that role in friendship groups and in family and that kind of thing. So I had a lot of my identity around being natural at that being good at that, which is that fixed mindset. And so offering coaching was like a threat to my identity. Because what if I offered coaching and, A no one signed up, or B everyone signed up and I was horrible. And so it was easier to just be like, Oh no, I’m going to do that later. And actually when I worked with Jen in 2016, she and I were talking about launching myself as a coach when I worked with her for six months, and I had just said, you know, I’m going to do these other things. First, I’m going to do X, Y, and Z first before I’m ready. And that wasn’t the case, I wish I had just launched that. And I’ve been given a little kick in the pants to do it. But I didn’t end up doing it then. And so when I got to that call with Erin, I was like, you know, I really want to do coaching.

And she’s like, so just do coaching. And I was like, I can do that. So I got beta testers. And I started actually offering coaching services. And that was really great. I had my first client, Kim, sign up, shout out to Kim. And then that’s been a whole different process to end up, like getting fully booked by the end of that year, and then have been fully booked out since which by the way, if you’re wanting to work with me, I’m not sure even if I do have any spots left for my next round, because a few of my clients are continuing. But if you’re wanting to find out more, you can go to samlauradbrown.com/coaching, if you are wanting to work with me one on one, they started offering coaching services. And I also did three blogging workshops, which were, which are now part of my course called perfect blogger, which is available if you did want to do that. And I’ve got all different tutorials in that if you’re wanting to create a presence online and start a website and all of that. So I did that.

And I just really started putting myself out there a bit more and giving people other ways to pay me instead of just like when I did that call with Erin, I had to fill out this sheet of where was my business currently out what was the current situation and doing that I was like, wow, there’s like no way for people to really give me money. Like there’s very limited ways for me to make money. So I started really trying different things. And I also did the Manifestation Babe course called Rich Babe, to get my money mindset on track. And I talk about different money mindset tips. I’ve been talking about it maybe the last year because I’ve really experienced a lot of transformation in my money mindset. But in Episode 67, I share four practical ways to transform your money mindset. And I share some of the practices that I currently have, as well as I think I recorded that maybe shortly after taking that program.

So really, her podcast is great for money advice, really helpful for me. But that was very pivotal for me to do that money mindset course. And it was actually really great because the other day, in that course we set these energetic rules for ourself of like, what do we want to have as our bare minimum standard, and I’d written down like, full time in my business, 15k months minimum, booked out with clients and a few other things. And I found that my Google Drive was like, Oh my God, that’s all true today. Like it was just such a cool moment. So anyway, I did that about a year ago. Now I did it. In August, I also invested in Jeff Walker’s course called Product Launch Formula, because I realized, like, I still didn’t know how to do a launch. And I just wanted instructions to follow. And I think that he’s a great teacher. And so I took his program as well, I then close the doors to the mini version of get out of your own way and have my first 10k launch.

And that mini version of get out of your own way, which is 29 US dollars. And the reason I charge in US for anyone wondering because I’m Australian is because most of you are in the States because my I haven’t mentioned this really. I grew my blog through Pinterest, which is so such a huge part of this that I am sorry, I hadn’t mentioned sooner. But I didn’t grow my blog through Instagram, like Pinterest has been such a powerful marketing tool, you can share the kind of advice that I share on Pinterest. I know some of you are aware, but many of you aren’t most people still seem to think that Pinterest is just for recipes and weddings, and outfit in Spa. But there’s so much personal development advice in there as well as business advice. So that could be something worth looking into. And I was able to grow through Pinterest.

I did put the time into it. But also there are tools is a very different platform to social media. It’s more of a search engine. And I was able to have my Pinterest growing on autopilot. So it meant that it didn’t matter that I was at my full time job. I was able to have this growing for me in the background. And so just wanted to mention that because that’s such a huge part of how I grew my blog, like yes, I follow that course and I optimize things. But I also actually put the effort into Pinterest and creating graphics on Canva and linking them up with my posts and all of that kind of thing as well. If you’re wanting Pinterest advice I recommend looking up Melyssa Griffin she has a course called Pinfinite Growth, which is really great.

So anyway, I was doing that I had my first 10k launch. And like that mini version of get out of your own way. I had had it available. But people weren’t signing up and my audience are perfectionist, which means they are procrastinators. And I was like, I keep getting so many emails from people telling me they want to buy this course. And yet, they’re not buying this course. So I decided I was going to close it. And I also wanted to really update it. So I did that I close it, and I updated it and launched it again earlier this year. And if you weren’t in that first version of the course, you got the updated one for free. So that was my first 10k launch. And that kind of just blew my mind. Like, I had heard people talking about making $10,000 in a launch, and just saw like, oh my god, that could never be me. And then I did it. I was like, Oh my God, what else is possible? Like, it’s such a liberating moment to be like, Wait, I didn’t think this was possible. And yet it is, I wonder what else is possible that I didn’t believe was possible for me.

And that’s been the same with making this transition to full time entrepreneurship. I never thought this was possible. Until now. I’m like, Oh, my God, this as possible, what else is possible? It’s just so much fun. So I did that I also had to get clear again, on my financial situation. Because when I first when I first went into my part time job, I had this idea in my head, that as soon as I had 1-10K launch, or 1-10K month, I’d be able to quit and saying it now I feel a bit silly. But I know that a lot of you will probably have similar kinds of beliefs, you just have this figure that you haven’t really done the math with and thought on Oh, well, that’s like, to me the reason I thought that was the case, because in my head, having a 10k month, man, it was a successful business. And so if I had a successful business, I could quit.

And I was having that thought, before Steve and I had bought the house, it’s a bit different now that I have a mortgage, but I still had this idea. Or once I have produced 1-10K month, I’ll be good to go. And then I had a 10k mind. I was like well, so a third of that goes to tax. And then I have expenses for creating my free content. And for other things too. So like 10k actually isn’t that much money, and I’m not going to be able to live off it. So I had to have a look again and be like ok what situation would I actually need to begin in order to leave my job? Like once I’d had that 10k launch, I can’t remember the timing. If this happened before or after a bit around, then I was like, I need to actually do the math. And I was like, again, here I am wanting to leave, but not knowing the financial situation I’d need to be in. So I did the math on that. And what I came up with was a 15 grand a month consistently.

So having that as the ballpark for each month over at least I guess three to six months. So for me that felt incredibly out of reach, like how am I going to be able to do that and consistently and I had no idea how to make that happen. But just so you know, my reasoning, the 15k, it was five for me, like for my income, five for the taxman and five for the business for reinvesting. So that was how I came up with 15,000. Even though to replace my income, the business only needs to pay me four to $5,000 a month. But it’s so important when you’re thinking okay, will I be ready to leave just where my job is my businesses making the same as my job is, unless your business has no expenses. And you’re thinking about tax as well in that situation, it’s probably not going to be the case that if your business so for example, for me if my businesses making 50k that I can then support myself with a 50k salary.

Because with online businesses, so many like I think I have about 20 monthly subscriptions for different software services. Plus, in this state, it’s so powerful to be investing in courses, and coaching and in person training and all of that kind of thing. So there’s money that I want to put into that as well. So for me, 15k a month was like ok that’s going to be five for me five for tax and five for the business itself. I also launched shortly after that Figure Your Life Out which is my group coaching program, which I am teaching again at the moment for the second round. I signed up for 12 months of mentoring with Erin for 2019 which was a 10,000 US dollar investment. I didn’t have all the money in full but did the payment plan option. And that was after I did my launch Figure Your Life Out which I think made about $20,000 And I was like what am I going to do with this money and also how like I need someone who has kind of been where I am now. And who can help? Because I had questions that I was asking, like friends and family.

And they could speculate with me on the answer, but I didn’t have anyone I could go to that really knew what it was like, and was on the same journey. So that was really powerful. And as soon as I signed up for that 12 months of coaching, I felt myself like step up, because I really want to make the most of this. And I also earlier this year, went on the Manifestation Babe retreat in March in Bali, which was so empowering. I spoke about it on my March personal growth update. But it was so empowering for me and I love that trip. I love the women that I met there Kathrin, Brannon, Londo, and Priya was so amazing. And it was just such an incredible experience. But to be on that trip, and to be like, I could do this. Like, I could actually run something like this was just so empowering for me and has really allowed me to step up, I still feel like I have so much stepping up to do but that has been a huge shift for me, when it has come to this place of being able to get myself to this position where I’m able to be full time in my business.

So I wanted to answer the question of how did I know it was time to leave my part time job? Because that was kind of the question that I just kept Googling and not getting much back on. So I wanted to share some detail with you around that. So when I got my part time job, I went in with the intention of leaving, I told the manager that hired me, hey, I’m here because I’m growing my business. My intention is to leave so when I was in my accounting job, I was pretending that I didn’t have a business and that I wasn’t planning to leave. But in this admin job, it was a bit different.

And I also just went in being like, hey, I have a business like, at times, I might need to have time off for my business. But this is my plan. Like, I’m not here to be here forever. I’m here as, like, as I’m making this transition. So it was really powerful for me to have that being known from the outset. And to just like, really, because it felt I felt like I wanted to live into that intention that I had set for myself. So initially, when I got into that, I wanted to get out ASAP. Because I didn’t feel like a real entrepreneur. As I said, I was really struggling with this identity around being an entrepreneur. And I was using this part time job as evidence that I wasn’t good enough to be a real entrepreneur, and I wouldn’t succeed. So I was in such a rush. And as I said, I thought that as soon as I had my first 10k month, I’d be able to leave. And I remember in think it must have been September 2017.

I remember telling one of the other receptionists like, Yeah, I’m like, hopefully, I’ll be able to leave in the next few months, which is now like, nearly two years ago, because I was just in such a rush. And really desperate to get out of there. Because I thought that once I got out of there, my life would be better not realizing that if I didn’t do the mental work in there, that it wouldn’t be any easier once I left. So I’m really glad that I didn’t leave and I wasn’t in a position to leave them. Because I don’t think mentally I mean, I would have been fine. But I still had a lot for that part time job to teach me it’s such a great teacher. And I want to make sure if you’re in a full time or part time job, that you’re not resenting it, because you’re the only one who has to feel that resentment. So if you’re gonna be that you may as well make the most of it and really take all the learnings that you can from it. And I still had so much to learn about mindset and about how to really appreciate that situation. And once I realized I was in such a rush, which took me like a year and a half to realize, I was like, Okay, I just need to really embrace being here and actually allow myself to enjoy it and like, What’s the fucking rush I’m like, 27 years old, everything’s okay, I’m just going to enjoy being here, I’m going to be grateful that this job is really allowing me to have the time to grow my business and really just getting into that mentality.

In September 2018. I realized that around then at least I realized that having the part time income was making me complacent, Will not I don’t think complacent the right word, I would say it allowed me to give into my fears and doubts. Because I was supporting myself fully from my part time job and not taking any money from the business. It meant the business just had to make like a couple 1000 a month, and everything was going to be okay, so there was no pressure to make more money than that. And when I left my full time job, the reason I really wanted to go into a part time job was because I didn’t want to put myself in this position where I had to make quick money and I had to make short term decisions, I really want to play the long game.

But then I kind of got to this point where I realized I can actually handle financial pressure a bit more now. And that would actually be really helpful to force me to step up to that next level. So I had loaned money to the company about $7,000. Just over time, when the company didn’t have enough money to pay for everything I had supplemented it to make sure there was always a surplus in the account and given it a loan, because that’s how it works once you’re Incorporated. And so I decided I was going to pay myself back the loan that I had given the company and I was going to do that at $400 a week, every week without fail. And so to have my account, which didn’t even have much in it to be dwindling that by $400, every week, I was like oh shit, like, I need to actually step up and come up with something like how to actually help more people so that I can make money and make an impact and really take this to the next level.

And that was when I had the idea shortly after that, to close get out of your own way and to get people into that and to help them with that program by making people make a decision. So that was really powerful. And I paid myself back that loan and then I in hindsight it would have been really great to just keep paying myself that but keep it within the company because I didn’t want to pay myself because of tax implications. But to just have a separate account within the company so that I had that runway developing to go full time in the business but instead of that I invested the money in Erin and I was like okay, well I’m going to have a coach so it’s been really great while I haven’t had a coach to have that financial pressure force me to step up and now I have Erin’s helped me do it.

So my plan for I naturally to go full time had been to do a big launch of a course and make enough money to be able to have a year’s salary in the bank, which is 50,000 at the moment, and then quit, which isn’t the most logical way and isn’t what I’d recommend if I was coaching, someone. But in my head, it was kind of that self sabotage because I was so scared of leaving, and actually going full time, because what if it failed? What if this what if that, so that was a way that I could like, pretend I really wanted to leave without actually giving myself a chance to leave? And again, I had to be like, Wait, this doesn’t make sense. So in April this year, so we’re getting recent, I realized that wasn’t actually a solid plan. And if I wanted to leave, why wasn’t I actually putting money away incrementally, and I had a conversation with a really dear friend at that time. And I just said to her, like, she’s not in business or anything. But I’d said to her, like, this is the situation like I’m trying to figure out, you know, when will I be able to support myself? And what does that look like, and I’m thinking I needed a 12 month runway.

And she was like, you know, maybe you don’t need 12 months, and she’s a really reasonable, like her head screwed on. She’s really amazing. And she’d been like, maybe 12 months is a little conservative, maybe you only need six months, and you know, maybe you could start putting money away. So I had that intention. Then I had a coaching session with Erin, she was in Brisbane. So we did an in person session. And I did the fear setting exercise at Tim Ferriss fear setting exercise again, I had done it that morning, I had been in a spin class, and I kind of been like, I just really feel like I need to like actually set a date and actually get things going. Did the fear setting exercise, realize that all my fears were just the same old shit, and weren’t actually very valid at all had that coaching session with Erin, we set a date to leave at the end of September, I had said oh, the end of December. And this is what I always do with my coaching clients, whenever they suggest a date we or a number we always amp it up, because we tend to just say to others what we think we can achieve, and don’t actually stretch ourselves as much as we can be, which is why it’s so powerful to have a coach so Erin said, Okay, what about the end of September, and I was like, Oh my God, that’s like six months.

And then as I was mentioning this before, I think then I after having that coaching session and making a decision about the date, I had the idea for PGSD, my membership and launch it almost immediately I announced it the day that I had the idea I just had this like moment of clarity. And after that all the doubt came in. But I just was like this is it. This is what I really want, like what I feel so connected to because I love the programs that I have. But I really feel like with my audience, and with you guys being procrastinators, and meeting that ongoing support, that having an ongoing membership is such a good solution for that instead of being like, here’s my cause for a few weeks, and then see you later to be like, here I am. And I’m getting to know you and I’m with you on this journey. And so excited about that. And so I launched that. And that created recurring income for me.

And once I did that, I was like, oh shit, now I can actually leave. And so this was still in May. So like the month after I had set that date, I was kind of already in a position where I was like, this is very real that I could leave. And then I went to date with destiny, which is a Tony Robbins event in May. So if you want to listen to more of it that I talked about it in the May personal growth update. And when I was there, I really realized like, Okay, it’s time for me to leave. I’m just saying like, the only reason I’m saying is because I’m scared. And that’s not a good enough reason. So I was really scared to leave. And there was so much uncertainty, I had all this fear, like Would I be able to keep making money? Do I actually have a real business?

Like, as I said, I’ve had this identity struggle with being an entrepreneur and see myself as that kind of person. And so it’s kind of like, Is this a real business? Like, I just get to sit in my office and chat about things I love and go live on Zoom and chat about things I love and help women that I love to help and read books and chat about books and like is this how is this real business? Like, especially growing up and getting told constantly, like it’s hard to make money and you’ve got to really earn it and now being like, wait, I’m in this job, I find it or this business, I find it so enjoyable. It’s not actually hard to make money. Like I’m literally not working harder than I was when I was making no money. And like could this be true? It’s just as full on identity crisis.

And I would say the last this week has been okay. But the last eight weeks have been some of the most uncomfortable weeks in my personal development journey, just really going through this transition. And also offering the workshops that I’m offering, which by the way, you can still join me, I’m going to be in Brisbane. Well I am currently in Brisbane, but I’m going to be teaching the Brisbane workshop on the 27th of July in a few days. And I’m going to be teaching a workshop, the same one in LA on the fourth of August. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/events, I’ll leave a link in the show notes if you want to join. But kind of how personal development works is that as soon as you have a new comfort zone, you then set the goal higher and higher and higher. So you end up in a situation where you’re never actually feeling comfortable, which can be pretty damn uncomfortable.

So the last few weeks, I’ve really been going through it, I have really been feeling like I want to crawl out of my own skin. I’m still okay, everything’s great. But just really leaning into the growth and leaning into my own potential is scary, and it’s uncomfortable. And it is easier to just watch Netflix, and to not be intentional with time and all these other things. But I really feel like it’s so important for me to do this because I want to show myself what’s possible for me and also to be an example for any of you who might be inspired by it. So that’s why I’ve been going through it. And it’s going to continue, because I’m going to keep growing. But that has been Yeah, the last little bit and I’ve just been like to see like, aren’t you scared? He’s like, no, like, it’s he’s so great at removing any drama. And I just been because I’ve just been like projecting my fear. I’m like, aren’t you scared like, what if the business fails? What if this? What if that he’s like, you can get a job, if you need to get a job, like, everything’s gonna be fine, like, nothing’s gonna explode. Like it’s all okay.

And it’s been really helpful to have that. And also really great when I’ve told people at work what I’m doing, and they’re just like, wow, that’s so cool. I’m like, yeah, it actually is really cool. Which I, it’s, when you’re in it, you kind of don’t recognize that, like what you’re doing. And it’s been really great for that. And also, when I told friends, like no one’s been like, oh, my god, are you sure you’re ready? Like, I think I’ve been the last person to kind of cottoned on. So that’s been, yeah, a full on identity crisis is how I would explain it, because I didn’t believe I could be a full time entrepreneur. And now I am one and my brains just trying to catch up. And this is why you don’t need perfect confidence to take action, or to create the reality you want. Because I have been continuously tapping into okay, if I believed that I could make 500k in a year, if I believe this, what would I do in this moment, and then taking that action, but I didn’t have my brain on board.

So I was able to create the results. But now I’m just like getting my brain to catch up and get in alignment to like, Hey, you’re actually doing this. And it’s been. It’s been really powerful the last seven weeks, so I handed in my resignation, yes, seven weeks ago, and I delayed, actually I delayed doing it, I was gonna initially have my data at the end of June. And fear got the better of me. And I just convinced myself that I needed to check my numbers, I need to make sure like, everything was all right. And everything wasn’t going to just fall apart the moment I handed it in. So I gave a bit of extra notice. And it’s been really great for me because I had seven weeks of me saying, Hey, I’m leaving to when I’m actually gonna leave this Friday. And the first three weeks, I still felt like, Am I really ready, like, and then the last few weeks have been like, Okay, I’m really ready to leave. Like I’m, I’m really, I guess, embodying that starting to embody that new identity where I feel like Wait, what am I doing here, because I’m not the kind of person who needs to be in a job like this.

So that’s been really powerful. And I’m really excited to be making this transition. As I said, it’s been a lot of fear, it hasn’t been all excitement, but at this point, at this moment, July the 21st I’m feeling really excited. So that has been a lot of talking I can feel my voice getting a bit raspy. But that’s been what has happened for the last two years two and a bit years from March 2017 When I left to now like that full transition to from full time accounting, to part time admin work to full time business, and I hope it’s been helpful. I just wanted to share a few things that I’m doing coming up in case you’re interested. So the first day of me being full time in my business. I will be teaching the business workshop in Brisbane super excited, and then I will be flying a few days later to The USA with my brother Alex.

So Alex works for me, oh my God, there’s so many things I have not included in this story. But Alex started working for me a few months ago, he just helps me with support, you might have talked to him if you emailed my support email. And I am going to Tony Robbins business mastery in Las Vegas. And I signed up a date with destiny, and you could take someone with you for free. And I was like, Cool, I’m going to take Alex and you know, he can learn stuff that might help him. But also, if he’s working with me in the business, it’d be like cool to go with him and to be on a similar page and have that shared vocab and all of that. And because neither of us have been to LA, we are also going to LA and I’ve been to universal in Orlando and on the Harry Potter ride, and it was fucking amazing. So I’m really like going to universal in LA to do that, because I really want to do that again.

And Alex wants to as well. But we’re also going to be Yeah, just seeing LA and catching up with people and then going to Vegas for five days, five full on days for business mastery, I think it’s like money, I’m to midnight, or whatever, each day, and I’m really excited to like knock it out over the numbers and really get into the nitty gritty of my business. And I’m sure I’m gonna have huge breakthroughs from that, like, I can already feel it. So I’m super excited about that I’m working on a lot of changes behind the scenes in my business model on what I’m going to be offering going forward and how to really serve you guys best. And yeah, just make, like really provide as much value as I can. Because with this podcast, like I didn’t do any episodes last week, because I just needed to take a step back and be like, Okay, I’m just recording what I was doing was recording every episode like the day before it needed to come out.

And so what I was sharing was just whatever happened to be top of mind, and I get a lot of great feedback about the podcast. And I’m glad it’s really helpful. But I was like, there are things I could be talking about that I not talking about, because I just haven’t sat down and thought about what are the gaps in what I’m showing what would be really helpful. What are things that people don’t ask me about, but they need to actually hear to have everything makes sense. I’m really looking at the membership, I really want to make that the most amazing membership for perfectionists and personal development and actually creating space in my schedule to allow myself to really think about what without what platform should there be on how can I best serve everyone? How can I create a really amazing sense of community? How can I make this content next level how like, really, I want to go all in on that membership.

And so I’m looking at what I can do. Because at the moment, I just have a lot of different things going on, many of which you don’t you guys don’t actually see. But really getting focused and narrowing in on the stuff that I feel is really important to me and really showing up consistently the best way that I know how and being really intentional with my time to I think planning is something I’m really going to need to focus on to get myself to that next level. Because I haven’t been as intentional with time as I want to be. And I know you guys think I’m like perfectly organized back here. But that ain’t the case. And I’m back into planning in my calendar. And it’s been really just another great reminder how much better I work when I’ve actually planned it out instead of just winging it and hoping for the best. And wondering why I don’t know what I did in a day. But now actually be like, This is what I’m doing today. And I don’t need to think about a to do list. And I don’t need to wonder when I also get other stuff done, because everything’s accounted for. It’s very tedious to do that level of planning.

I’m going to share more about that. But it’s so powerful. And I think that’s what I really need to be focusing on to get to that next level for myself and for the business. And I’m working on a lot of systems and processes behind the scenes a lot of really unglamorous stuff that’s going on. And also the other thing I wanted to mention the last thing for this marathon podcast episode is creating boundaries for myself and really been intentional with time in terms of downtime as well, not just in terms of wanting to be working all the time. But I’m really excited about having I’ll get about 30 extra hours per week because I work currently the part time job 24 hours a week across five days, and it’s about an hour to an hour and a half travel.

So I’m gonna get about 30 hours of my time back and to just really make sure I’m not just filling it with busy work, but I’m really being intentional about okay, I’m working at this time and I’m really gonna work I’m not watching a YouTube video. I’m not doing something else like I’m working. And then this is my rest time and I’m going to hang out with Steve. I’m going to read a book so excited about reading. Oh my god. So excited to have some more time to read but I know that if I don’t actually carve that out it’s not going to happen. It’s not Like, just getting more time available means that I’m going to naturally spend it in the way that I best want to if I’m not careful, I’ll be just scrolling through Instagram. Actually, at the moment, I can’t, because I don’t have a feed, I’ve muted everyone, but so I could claim that back for myself, but to really just be intentional with the time that I will have.

And to not just think it’s, like, take it for granted that okay, well, you know, I have all this time now, I’m going to read for a couple of hours a day, like I need to carve that out and put it in my calendar. And I want to make sure that I’m still doing the workouts that I want to do and all of that as well. So once I get back from a trip, I’ll be getting back on August 16, to really have a look at my schedule and to start optimizing that and to let it be okay, that things are going to be a bit messy while I’m traveling. But then, too, and give myself a couple of days when I get back to deal with jetlag, and anything like that. But to then really create that intentional plan for the remainder of the year and to get really focused and to be willing to do the uncomfortable hard things, and to work when I work and to rest when I rest.

So that’s everything I have to share with you in this episode. Again, I hope it’s been incredibly helpful. It’s been cathartic and fulfilling for me to share the journey because I never thought that this would end up happening. I had hoped to but I hadn’t believed it. And now we’re here. So everything I’ve mentioned, there’s a lot of different things I’ve mentioned, it’s all going to be in the show notes. If you have enjoyed this, if you have found this helpful if there’s even one little bit of wisdom that you have taken away, I would love you to screenshot this and either tag me on Instagram or send me a DM I’m @samlaurabrown. I love hearing from you guys.

When you listen to my podcast and find it really helpful. And especially when you guys share, like your takeaways on your stories. It’s it’s so much fun for me. And also, if you love this podcast, please leave a review. I don’t ask this very often, but it really makes a difference to me. So if you’re on the podcast app, you can just scroll down and hit write a review, or wherever it is you’re listening. But it really, really means a lot to me to just, you know, take a couple of seconds to leave an honest review of the podcast so that others can find it and can listen to it and learn about this stuff as well. But I’m gonna wrap it up here. The show notes again is where you can find anything but I hope you are having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Outro
So I hope you found today’s episode incredibly helpful and inspiring, and just motivating. If you are right in the thick of that journey of going full time in your business, and maybe right now it doesn’t feel like things are gonna work out. I know I had so many moments like that, where I just thought it was never going to come together. And it did. And it did so beautifully. And I have been able to sustain being full time in my business. And as I mentioned in the intro, being able to have two maternity leaves and just being able to have such incredible work life balance to do work I love and all of that. So yeah, I just hope it’s one you save yourself, and come back to as you need it. So as I mentioned in the introduction to this episode, we will be opening enrollment for PGSD in a few days time. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd to sign up for the waitlist.

And I have one last little special announcement, which is if you are a current or past PGSDer and you are ready to do the advanced work. When it comes to perfectionism and self coaching and advanced power planning as well, then that is going to be something that I’m going to be sharing with you an opportunity that I’ll be sharing with you very soon. So just keep an eye out either on the podcast, be listening, or on your emails, so that you don’t miss out for this incredible opportunity. It’s the first time I’m doing anything like what I’m going to be doing. And I know that there are so many people who love where I share the behind the scenes of the advanced stuff I do, like the launch debrief episodes, and things like that. So I’m just really, really, really excited to be offering this opportunity. So anyway, with all of that said, I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.


Author: Sam Brown