Minisodes are back! Today we’re talking about getting a job—especially when you’re at a crossroads between needing more cash and wanting to start your own business. We’re answering one of our listener’s questions about settling for a job vs. doing what you really want to do.
Emily Thompson 0:05
Welcome to being boss, our minisodes are all about answering your questions. And today's minisode is all about getting a job.
Kathleen Shannon 0:15
Today's being boss minisode is brought to you by chimp essentials. chimp essentials is a MailChimp course, written and designed by Paul Jarvis. If you guys don't know Paul Jarvis, he is one of the most brilliant newsletter writers I've ever met. And he has a huge list and still makes it feel so personal. If you've been wanting to start a newsletter, we've been talking all about newsletters. Paul Jarvis's course is a great place to start, especially if you're curious about MailChimp, he's going to be teaching you some of the technical sides of how to onboard how to set up MailChimp, how to use segments and lists appropriately. And then he's also going to teach you the psychology behind growing your list and selling to your list. So try it today by going to beingboss.club/chimp. And you can try free courses or paid courses, but it's only for the month of March. So act fast.
Kathleen Shannon 1:08
Alright, so today we have a question from Jane. That is not her real name. She asked to be kept anonymous.
Emily Thompson 1:16
Good.
Kathleen Shannon 1:17
Jane says hi, Kathleen Emily. First I wanted to let you know I love your podcast. And every time I'm done listening to an episode, it gives me a rush of motivation to go out and conquer the world. You guys rock don't ever split up or we'll all be super sad. We have an operating agreement just this afternoon. So we'll try not too.
Emily Thompson 1:35
It will be good.
Kathleen Shannon 1:35
And I have a problem slash question slash dilemma that I could really use your knowledge and advice for. I recently got laid off from an event and wedding planning company because they were relocating. I was their only full time employee and started out just as an intern, they were a husband and wife company, and they bought a house in a different state move closer to their families, etc. which is totally fine. But they didn't give me a heads up when they obviously knew. And they also laid me off during the slow season. They basically kept me around until they didn't need me anymore, and could handle the slow season by themselves. I loved my job and was devastated. I don't want that to happen to me again. So with that being said, I'm having an extremely hard time finding a full or part time job doing what I love. Most companies are only hiring interns or freelance for the spring and summer or not at all. I can't live on working a few days a month but it would give me more experience. It basically means I will have to start from scratch all over again for another company. And I fear this situation can happen again working for someone else. Do I sound like a girlfriend going through a bad breakup and not trusting any guy in existence ever again? Haha. I'm in a slight freakout stage you think? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I should start my own event company start an online boutique or design stationery and personalize papery for events. Those things all interest me. I just don't know where to begin or which one to choose. And they will all take time. And I'm at that point in my life, where I want to get my life taking off, aka I need a full time job yesterday, there is so much different information out there. And I'm one confused girl with all your knowledge with working with these types of creatives. What is your outlook on it? Do you have any ideas on what I should do? Thank you so much. And I hope to hear from you soon.
Emily Thompson 3:30
shoooo.
Kathleen Shannon 3:31
Emily, what do you think
Emily Thompson 3:34
task number one, take a big old deep breath. Big old deep breath. So a couple of things here. I think I mean, she talks about now a big risk of working for someone else is getting fired and not getting or getting laid off or whatever you want to call it. And that's not a risk that you run so much. Whenever you run your own business, you just may not get hired by anyone, as far as clients are selling products. So it's all just it's all a way of pros and cons for you. My biggest thing here you know if you need a full time job, it's not any you need it yesterday, deal with the fact that it may not be in something that you love. Because it's one of the things she talks about as needing a job or wanting to find a job that she loves. And if you're just that desperate didn't just go get something at the kind of Oh, it kind of kills me sometimes whenever I hear people like griping about not being able to find a job when there are tons of jobs out there. They just may not be exactly what you want. But if you're hurting that bad for it and it's that mandatory? Yes, go get a job and then side hustle what you really want to do. Try out any of those other ideas that you have, because that's where you get into a place where you're not working for someone else and sort of at the beck and call or the firing capabilities of anyone else. You are simply doing what you love for yourself but get yourself into something right now that will get you going in one direction instead of just sort of spiraling into hysteria.
Kathleen Shannon 5:06
Amen. I cannot agree more. And I think that it's really hard to build a dream job out of desperation. And you have talked about this before, because you actually did kind of have a rubber meets the road situation where you kind of have no other choice but to be your own boss and to make it work. And I think that that is certainly the case, at times. Now, what concerns me about that for Jane here is that she doesn't really know what she wants to do. And I feel like you have to have your sights on a goal and know what you're going for in order to kind of do that hustle out the gate. Does that make sense?
Emily Thompson 5:48
Absolutely. I think it absolutely makes sense. It works best that way. But I'll tell you, whenever I and I've said this, this is definitely something I've said before. And in reference to me just one of having to make this work is that there is no hustle, like the hustle that comes when you have no choice. But to succeed. Whenever you have a full time job or a part time job to lean on, you're not working as hard as at this thing that you really want to be building. And whenever I did sort of go full time, I was like I was jumping all over the place. Like I had a jewelry business that I was running in like trying to end so that I could do my web design business. I was also dabbling in like designing stationery at that time. So yes, it works better if you know what you're going to be doing. But for me, going at multiple little things at that moment allowed me to test several different options, with the idea that whichever one had the most traction was the one that I totally just went in for. So yes or no, it definitely works better. But just trying something. And even if it's more than one thing at a time, gets you going in the right direction.
Kathleen Shannon 6:59
One of the things that I love about owning and running an online business that we can do from anywhere is that we can work from anywhere and our jobs and our employees are not reliant on a location. So it's a little bit more difficult answering Jane's question because part of me is like you can hustle for anyone from anywhere in the world. But I know that events deals a lot with location specific situations of where you actually are. So ultimately, my vote is for getting a day job, just getting something that will pay the bills, freelancing on the side, maybe you can get something that is flexible enough that you can take on those two or three jobs a month. And then slowly, you can start to get traction in those places. And you can try a bunch of different things. It sounds like you have a lot of tools in your tool belt that you can rely on, or that will also make you even more attractive for another event planning company. So it's a little bit of all of it. But my main thing is don't create your dream job out of desperation and really trying something new that you've never done before. Like stationery, for example. Probably not the best idea. Just throwing that out there.
Emily Thompson 8:14
True that and I agree. Go for it. Go for something and make it work for you. We all deal with sticky situations, but it's our ability to move forward that gets us out of them.
Kathleen Shannon 8:28
All right. That's it for today's minisode I want to tell you all that being boss is going to Miami, and we want you to come with us. Right now we've got Basecamp and acuity scheduling, sponsoring our trip, and with their help, we're going to have a really really good time. So the vacation is in April and we actually just decided today that we may not be doing a fall vacation so this will be your only chance to hang out with us this year. That's not entirely true.
Emily Thompson 8:59
It's not entirely true. But you can go to beingboss.club/Miami to learn more about our boss vacation and join in on the fun. I hope to see you there.
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