Of course not! I hear you respond, indignantly.
I own my business, don’t I? It’s my name on the directors list?
Yep. Sure. But is it what you dreamed of?
I’m what’s been called a “serial entrepreneur”. I’ve had different small businesses along my journey, and until now, I’ve been too scared to go after what I really wanted.
Here’s my story. Maybe there’s a lesson in there for you, too.
I’ll never forget working for a Solar Energy company in my early twenties, where I grew from admin, to sales to Sales & Marketing Coordinator for NSW.
I thought I was awesome.
One day, I said to the marketing manager at our head office “How do I get into marketing as a career?”. His answer? “Well, what part of marketing do you want to do?”. I had no idea. I loved making brochures pretty. I also loved writing what I now know was copy for said brochures. But I also at the time, loved organising events.
I also had a long history of enjoying speaking – from doing speech eisteddfods, debating and spoken poetry as a kid, to grabbing any chance I could get to speak in front of an audience in my working life.
It was too hard to choose. So when my role at that company ended, instead of thinking about what I really wanted, I went for what was easy (to me) – sales.
Sure, I tried doing some graphic design on the side during a period where I thought I wanted to join the army (a tale for another day), but it was always a side gig.
From one sales job to the next, somehow I landed in finance and home loans, then learned my trade as a mortgage broker. Me, who always said I’d never work in finance or accounts, can’t stand maths and wanted to do something creative. Yep, I was a broker.
The best part about being a broker and having my own business? I got to design my flyers, social media posts, make cool promo videos and write awesome emails.
Pretty sure you can see what I didn’t want to face by now.
Family came first for a while, and I remained in finance and banking while I had my m̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ children.
I learned that working for a major bank and having two kids under two mixed kinda like oil and water. Flexibility became my main goal.
After trying some part-time work for another small business and realising I needed to love the work that I do, even if my kiddos are my priority, No Grey Suits was born.
So here we are, full circle. Now, content creation and copy are my bread and butter, sales is my side-gig and I’m finally starting to lean into what I enjoyed all along.
Fear of failure kept me side-stepping the career I always wanted.
Do you find yourself wishing your day-to-day was different?
It’s your business. Your journey. You get to choose what makes you smile.
