From Corporate to Entrepreneur: My Midlife Crisis Story

A reflection on year one as a solo entrepreneur

Inspiration for becoming an entrepreneur

At the time, in 2017, I wouldn’t have called it a midlife crisis. I was unhappy with my job and I was increasingly getting angry at work. I was angry at the work I was doing, I was angry at some of the people I had to work with, and I was angry that I didn’t know how to change it. I just thought I needed a change, I didn’t attribute it to my age or view it as a crisis.

Looking back, I can say now, without a doubt that I was in a midlife crisis.

Wikipedia says a midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle-aged individuals, typically 40-60 years old. By that definition, I started my midlife crisis 2 years early.

I knew changing companies was not going to ‘fix’ my problem. I didn’t want the same/same but different. That’s when I started researching going back to school to get a Masters in Nutrition and Dietetics. As I started reading through the programs, I realized that I wasn’t sure enough about this new path to quit my job and devote full-time to two years of education.

I decided to dial it back and look for something I could do while working, to experiment, if you will. I discovered health coaching and took the plunge, and the expensive investment, and registered for the 2018 year at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN).

This article is not about IIN or my health coaching certification, I only mention it because it was the genesis for becoming a solo entrepreneur. The seed was planted and started to grow for 4 years before I was finally ready to quit my corporate career and take the plunge.

Challenges

Financial challenges faced in the first year as an entrepreneur

Once the seed was planted to eventually start my own business, I began to save my money. I wanted to make a clean break AND support myself for at least 1-2 years while building my business. For many people that are considering changing careers or specifically trying to start their own business, this nest egg can be the first and biggest challenge to overcome.

I am fortunate that I share expenses with my partner and I live and work in Switzerland. We don’t have any dependants, and we are not crazy with our money so it was quite easy for me to squirrel away enough money to support myself for 3-4 years.

The next financial challenge is the 20k CHF you need if you want to register your business as a GmbH (LLC) in Switzerland. I was able to manage this amount and I really thought that this amount would float the business for several years. I did not anticipate the amount I would need to spend and the number of expenses due to being a GmbH. The biggest expenses in my first year were my accountant, my insurance, and software as a service (SaaS). Let me know in the comments if you are interested in the nitty-gritty financial aspects of my business and would like an article dedicated to a detailed breakdown of my first-year balance sheet.

Shifting focus: from health coaching to goal-setting coaching

The next challenge is actually building the business.

In early 2021 I developed my business plan for a health coaching business that could scale. It was important that it was scalable because trying to make enough money as a single coach with 1-1 clients is very difficult and a recipe for burnout.

In May 2022, I signed on with The Pricing Lady, Janene Liston, to develop my pricing strategy based on the 2021 business plan. After working for a couple of months I realized that I made the cardinal mistake many young entrepreneurs make which is not understanding my market well enough.

Whether I didn’t niche down enough or didn’t know my target audience, the bottom line was I wasn’t ready to launch my business. I knew I didn’t want to put in months of effort and then have no audience or market for my service.

I went back to the drawing board and decided to change focus from health coaching to self-improvement (goal-setting) coaching. The main reason for this shift is the uphill battle to educate potential clients on what a health coach is and what working with one looks like. Re-focusing my business on helping clients set amazing goals, creating a plan to tackle the goals, and then supporting them to achieve the goals is much easier to market.

I’m still working on my messaging, and I probably still need to niche down some more but I feel that this focus on goals and being a goal-getter is more aligned with my mission and purpose.

Balancing work and personal life

I have never been one of those people who think about work outside office hours. I am fortunate to be able to ‘turn it off’ whenever I am done for the day.

When deciding to take the path of building my own business, I wondered how balancing my work and personal life might develop and how that might shift when working for myself.

During the first year of being my own boss, I can still shut off work when I want to but I’m finding that I often don’t want to shut it off. I’m enjoying working on my passions, making connections with clients, and exploring new ideas. While working in corporate, I was working for someone else and I didn’t owe them my personal time. Now that I’m working for myself and where do I draw the line? I think it’s a good sign if I want to keep working.

Some might say I don’t put in enough hours for someone starting a business. Maybe I don’t, but one of the best parts about building your own business is that no one can tell you how to do it. Maybe by working slower I won’t reach my yet to be defined definition of success as quickly as someone else putting in 80 hours a week, but I’m not living to work.

I keep track of my hours and what I work on primarily because of my ADHD and my inability to process how much time I’ve spent on any one task. By keeping track of my hours I can see how balanced I really am between work and personal time. It can be very difficult for me to focus on getting the right thing done at the right time. There are a whole lot of rabbit holes for me to go down.

What I have loved about working for myself is the freedom to work when it suits me and to really enjoy all of my time. If the weather is really good, I can go for a hike in the morning and then work later in the day. Having that level of freedom took some time to get used to, I’m still getting used to it but it’s one of the things I love the most about working for myself.

Successes

I’m still working on my definition of success but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some wins in the bank.

I have arranged my company, Little Elephant GmbH, into two business units; MyBestSelf is a B2C coaching business with a new approach to achieving your goals through personalized coaching and community support, and Squizzel Digital Solutions is a B2B service focused on helping solo entrepreneurs and small-business start-ups build their online businesses.

Acquiring the first few clients

My very first client was for Squizzel Digital Solutions and unsurprisingly it came through my network. The project focused on building a website for another corporate-turned-coach. I had a lot of fun working on that project and learning what not to do. It was definitely a boost to have a paying client just weeks after I left my job.

It took me a bit longer to get MyBestSelf up and running. I expected that the coaching business would take longer to build so I wasn’t surprised or disappointed when it took more than a few weeks to get going. I left my job in May 2022 and it wasn’t until October 2022 that things really started to click for MyBestSelf.

Launching a successful service

In November 2022, the path for MyBestSelf started to become more clear. I began to understand what I needed to do and to create to get going with the coaching business. I knew I wanted to build a community and once I found the best community platform I got to work building it while visiting my parents between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My new community was launched in January 2023.

My original plans for monetizing the community did not happen how I thought they would, but I’m still experimenting with different strategies and ideas. As I’m writing this article I have 28 members in my community and my goal is to double it every quarter.

If you are interested in joining the MyBestSelf Community, here is a link to join. At the moment this article is published it’s free to join.

Positive feedback from customers

One of the best things that has come from starting this journey is meeting and working with such lovely people. I get to work with people I haven’t seen in many years plus I’ve met so many awesome, intelligent, and inspiring people.

Even though I don’t have all my shit together yet, I’m still somehow helping other people get their shit together, or at the least helping them get on the path of straightening up their shit.

Hearing feedback from people I’ve helped is the ultimate high and one of the main drivers that keeps me going. Even as I’m writing this I’m getting a buzz thinking back over the year and the heartfelt thanks I received from clients.

Lessons Learned

Importance of networking

I did not realize how anemic my networking was until I left my corporate role. I was never in a position that required me to network and effectively I lost touch with the art of meeting new people. I had lost my spark.

Fortunately, I had a few people that helped me back up on the horse and in no time I was attending networking events. These events have lead to my new mastermind group, regular meet ups with potential partnerships, and I feel like I’m finally creating an amazing support team around me. Some of my best ideas came from my new network of amazing people. Learning how to brainstorm again without corporate restrictions took some time but I’m there now.

The only problem with growing my network is trying to keep up with everyone and there are so many good ideas that I often get distracted by shiny object syndrome. I don’t know what the future holds for my career but if I ever go back to corporate I will hold on tight to my network.

Learning from failures experiments

I don’t like the term failures, instead I use the word experiments to describe my learning experiences. Failure is defined as a lack of success, therefore it depends on how one defines success.

I don’t currently have a definition of success, maybe that is something I need to noodle on while I continue to conduct experiments. For now, I’m trying different approaches, and each time I try something new I’m learning.

What’s that quote, “The only failure is not to try”. I just looked this up and I’m surprised that George Clooney is attributed to this quote. Who knew? *I continued to google this quote and sure enough there is another very close version of this by Robin S. Sharma, “The only failure is not trying.” But I think the best quote to sum up this section is the following:

Success is not final, and failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.

-Winston Churchill

Taking calculated risks

Risks are everywhere and it wouldn’t be wise to ignore the risks but they shouldn’t hold you back either. By not trying, we avoid the risk of change for only a moment but there are always other risks out of your control.

I carefully considered my options like working only 60% while getting my business off the ground. That choice would pose other risks like the risk of being overworked trying to do two jobs at once and excelling in neither.

I am definitely more comfortable taking calculated risks than my partner. This choice is not for everyone or for any time. I feel free to make a choice like quitting my job because I know I will land on my feet. Where will I land, I don’t know yet but I will land soundly somewhere, even if it’s back in corporate.

Taking this leap has definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone, just enough to feel the push but not so much that I’m scared and paralyzed.

Conclusion

Reflection on the first year as an Entrepreneur

It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I said goodbye to my 17-year career in the diabetes care medical device industry. I would be lying if I said I missed it. I definitely miss the people.

It took me a good 3-4 months to get my brain into the right space of being an entrepreneur. I still struggle with feelings of overwhelm, of wearing all the hats in my business. I struggle with focusing and imposter syndrome.

But I love it, I love everything about working for myself, even it if means living off my savings and not making any money yet. It will happen, it’s only a matter of time and persistence.

Plans for the future

I will continue to experiment with my business to try and find the right recipe that will make a profitable business.

I have also realized that I work better as part of a team. I have two projects that involve partnerships and I’ll be looking to see how I can develop other partnerships in the future.

Tell me in the comments how this article made you feel. Did it make you want to start something new or shake your head at me and my ignorance?

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