How to Stay Positive About Your Day Job
May 6, 2016Today’s question comes from Alexa at our live recording at Being Boss Miami about ways she can stay positive in working a day job while being a boss and building up her business on the side.
Today’s question comes from Alexa at our live recording at Being Boss Miami about ways she can stay positive in working a day job while being a boss and building up her business on the side.
Emily Thompson 0:00
Hello and welcome to being boss. For this minisode we got a question live from one of our Miami bosses.
Kathleen Shannon 0:14
Hey bosses, Kathleen and I are honored to be speaking at venture pop a conference for creative entrepreneurs in New Orleans in September. That's right again, Evelyn and I are hitting the Crescent City, my very favorite city again, and we're hoping that you will join us. Venture pop is a two day conference held September 17 and 18th. Designed to gather creatives with the guts and grit to grow their business sounds like a place for bosses. To me, purchasing a ticket for venture pop is more than an excuse for a lively weekend in New Orleans. It's an investment in you and your business. Join us for two days of influential speakers and activities built to invigorate and educate and probably a couple of sides are x to find your community grow your business To learn more visit being boss club slash venture pop. We hope to see you there.
Alexa 1:05
So my name is Alexa and I am originally from New York and I actually lived down here in South Florida. I've been here for about two years. In August of 2015, I started a wedding planning company called long aisle event. And my question is, I obviously I'm not at a point yet where I can be a full time Boss, I still have to work a boring day job. So how what are some ways that I can stay positive in working my day job while still being a boss and having my wedding planning business on the side?
Kathleen Shannon 1:45
Great question, Alexa.
Emily Thompson 1:48
Do you like your day job?
Alexa 1:50
Well, it's funny that you asked that I actually just got laid off from it on Thursday. So I got laid off from my day job. And then I came here and I was like, Yes, great timing. This is super appropriate and needed to happen. Like,
Kathleen Shannon 2:03
Ok, that was like a big piece of information that you just introduction,
Alexa 2:10
the other day job. So like, now I can't I wish I can just like I only have one client at the moment. I wish I could sustain but I can feel so.
Kathleen Shannon 2:23
Okay, so Alexa asks us about her boring day job and how to stay positive and be boss, she goes back through seat and then tells us that she just got laid off on Thursday. So for a lot of bosses, this is a sink or swim moment. But Alexa feels that she needs a day job to pay the bills. And I think that's great. And Emily and I are never going to tell anyone to quit their day job. I think a lot of people come to us kind of expecting that kind of permission. But day jobs can really work to your advantage. I think that whenever you can get in the boss mindset of, Okay, this is my day job. What can I learn from here? How can I basically get paid to deepen my expertise. And I think that applying all those same boundaries and point of view in your day job is a is a great place to start practicing, I probably really started to dig into personal branding at my day job. And it's something that I started thinking about, and I had time to really explore it, I think another big advantage to having a day job is that in your time off, you can really focus on only taking the clients that you want. And it's going to be a really big temptation, whenever you're side hustling to just take on anything, because you want to be able to prove it that you can that you could take on all the work. But I think if you do have a day job, you should really focus on building your portfolio, the way that you want to really building your portfolio for what you want to be known for. So really establishing what it is that you want to do in the wedding wedding specifically, right. wedding planning sphere, I think is so important. And you have time to really dig in and define what that is.
Kathleen Shannon 4:14
So okay, I have a couple of thoughts like yes, I will never just tell someone to leave their day job. I will give them permission if that's something that they really want to do. And it's something there's not going to shut up about until they do it. But I also like, what would you do if you were to put your energy like looking for a new day job into finding more one on one clients, like what could happen if you got out of that mindset of I have to have another day job and put that energy into actually making this happen. And I've said this before, like there is no hustle like the hustle you do when you have no choice other than to succeed. And so like you could even look at this at this position of like being laid off as you In the universe telling you, it's time to put the work in. So not that that has to be the path that you do. But I am giving you the permission to make that an option. Because especially early in my business, I remember a couple of times where, you know, really needing a new client, like, if you just put that energy into I remember a couple of times, like laying in bed like meditating and like, just need one more client, like we and I always got one, always. And so if you were to put that energy into actually making this work, what could you do?
Kathleen Shannon 5:40
And just to be clear, Emily meditated on getting a client. But that's not how you got the client
Emily Thompson 5:46
like, Oh, absolutely. Did you like this minisode Be sure to check us out on our website at being boss dot club. There you can find more from being boss, including our full episodes, minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss