I spit my coffee on my screen when I read “Hating your job intensely is not a business plan.” This quote was in Pamela Slim’s recent newsletter on LinkedIn titled “Will it blend?” Pam is the best! 

Carol Roth would say something similar. 

In fact, both of them wrote very important books about entrepreneurship not being all that and a bag of chips, and definitely not being for everyone. 

Carol’s first book, as you probably know, was The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business. It is a sobering read where Carol very clearly discusses who should be an entrepreneur, and, more importantly, who should not. She cleverly suggests you ask yourself whether you are Santa or an elf. If you are an elf, you probably shouldn’t try to run a business. 

Before I started my business, I inhaled, studied, and underlined Pam’s book, Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur. Pam is an incredibly warm person and her personality shone through. I felt like she was my personal mentor and coach as I gave notice to my very stable job and launched my consulting business. 

In retrospect, I probably should have done some consulting on the side, even though it was a direct violation of my employment agreement. (They took that seriously back then.) I could have followed Carol’s and Pam’s advice and tried dipping my toe in the water before upending my life. I was an experienced consultant, but I had never sold the kind of services I was contemplating. 

But 2010, the year I started my business, was all about making bold gestures and “burning the boats” to ensure you stayed committed to your goal because there was no way back. I was single with no kids and I had some money in the bank. I could afford to take the risk. 

A more prudent me would have done some client work very quietly on the weekends. I would have tried to sell my services and gotten feedback on my messaging and my pricing.

Pro tip: Launching a business will probably take longer than you think, and maybe a lot longer to generate the revenue you need. 

In her newsletter, Pam makes a great point:

Modern-day, Instagram-fueled planning practices often encourage you to make bold moves, publicly declare your goals and document your progress aloud.

This leads people to committing to things that they may not actually enjoy long-term, like sharing Instagram reels daily for a year, running a marathon, changing careers or building a big new business initiative.

Social media posting is something you should definitely try before you announce what you are planning to do. I have watched so many YouTube creators say they are going to post every day, and then they find that they are getting crushed by the daily cadence because it isn’t sustainable as a solo or very small business. 

Ditto for people who commit to creating written content or videos for LinkedIn. 

Entrepreneurs are optimists. We are prone to overestimating what we can do. My suggestion is that you try things, see what works for you, and then when you are locked in make your announcement to the world.  

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash