As far back as I can remember I worked in jobs where I had a job description and followed rules and instructions. I made a living and had a nice life. What else could I want?

In 1995, I began yearning to be my own boss. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t know what kind of business I wanted to start. This was a new feeling for me. I had just completed three years of school and earned my master’s in business administration degree. I had accepted an executive-level position and made a nice salary.

On some level, I knew that connecting with my higher self through entrepreneurship was the next step, though I talked myself out of making this transition for several years. I wasn’t clear about what I wanted to do so I told myself that I’d wait until my kids were grown, until I had more money, got a new car or a new house.

This desire to be my own boss wouldn’t leave me and as scary as it was, I acknowledged my desire, and became willing to move through the experience. I realized that for me, the process of letting go of my job and stepping into new territory was more difficult than any change I had experienced in my life.

I started a journal, writing down ideas for businesses and just fantasizing about what it would be like to be my own boss. I read Entrepreneur Magazine and attended business seminars. I continued working and making more money. I was comfortable, so why wouldn’t this yearning leave me?

I stayed in this emotional state for two years, accepting a position for another company and advancing three times over the next year and a half. My journal began to reveal new ideas such as launching a magazine, writing a book, and being a consultant. I realized that my inner voice was farther ahead of my emotional self.

When I was promoted the third time, I had to take a test to prove my worth. Although my boss and I both knew that the test did not accurately measure my skill level, he decided to believe the results of the test. The promotion was taken away as fast as I got it.

I was told that the company was willing to train me and in the mean time I would be given a salary increase and a different title for the job I was already doing. I felt slighted and turned it down. No amount of money, no job title or promotion was worth losing my value as a person. The next day I gave my notice. I realized that I stood up for myself in a way I never had before. I felt a new sense of bravery.

A few days later, I surprised myself by accepting a job in a different division—not because I wanted the job but because I was afraid. My belief that I needed a paycheck to live was so strong that it took precedence over all else. I realized that working for someone was the only style of work I had ever known. I began to wonder if I could really change.

This whole process of trying to leave my job was emotionally draining—I constantly questioned myself and knew that I was buying time until I could find the courage to leave for good. I wasn’t even going to look for another job. I had allowed my jobs to take away my uniqueness, my individuality and my self-esteem. These feelings pushed me into my entrepreneurial desires. That scared me, too. What I really wanted to do I didn’t know, but I knew that I needed to do something, to just start somewhere.

After several years of having ideas of what I wanted to do as an entrepreneur, I made a decision that I felt was the best I could make at that time. I decided to publish a magazine. I had been in the publishing industry for a few years and liked it. I understood the industry, had numerous contacts within it and had identified a niche market for my magazine.

I read some business books, investigated local business development programs and went to S.C.O.R.E., Service Corps of Retired Executives, a division of the U.S. Small Business
Administration to get guidance on becoming a small business owner. All the books I read, people I met and seminars I attended summarized how to get started as a small business owner quite simply—write a business plan, work in an area familiar to you, and have at least six months of savings before leaving your job. “I can do that,” I thought. I established a budget, began researching the market and putting my plan together.

Five months after my first failed attempt to leave my job, I was ready once again. Only this time I had a business plan and savings. I gave my notice and fear set in again. I didn’t understand it—I had a plan, I saved money, I followed the guidelines of starting a business—but I felt the same fears I had when I gave in and accepted my job back the first time.

Over the next few days I still planned to leave my job, but fear was overwhelming me. I felt sick to my stomach, dizzy a lot of the time and somewhat disoriented. It was as if this change—which I wanted to make—was a shock to my body. I even had dreams about being out of control.

I was again offered some variations in my job and I accepted. I was happy to be relieved of these uncomfortable feelings. Having attempted to leave my job twice now in six months, I felt trapped. I was tortured by my thoughts: What was it going to take? Was I ever going to leave this job? How come I couldn’t leave? What was wrong with me? Why do I have to leave? Why can’t I stay at this job since I’m doing so well at it?

I reflected on the two times that I tried to leave my job and realized something important. I hadn’t done anything to change me. All of my efforts in becoming an entrepreneur were outside of me—writing a business plan, saving money and focusing on gaining business knowledge. My thoughts and fears were still the same, my beliefs were the same and my insecurities were the same. So I asked myself, “What do I need to do now?” The answer, of course, was “change and grow.”

I realized that the preparation I needed to make before I could resign the next time was inside me. I came to understand that a business plan or savings were not the key to becoming an entrepreneur. The key was that I needed to be willing to take on my fears and change my way of thinking about my future. I needed to come face-to-face with my fears, insecurities, likes and dislikes. I needed to get to know me. Yes, a business plan and savings were important to me but more important was that I could learn how to accept change in my life. I needed to prepare emotionally, mentally and spiritually for this transition.

I became aware of my patterns and behaviors and began to understand why I was unable to leave my job. I didn’t know how to be OK with uncertainty. My self-confidence and self-esteem, which I thought were within me, were actually “on loan” to me from my employer. I had come to rely on my employer to provide my sense of security.

I wanted so badly to change that I began working as diligently on myself as I had on my business plan. I accepted that I was afraid. I searched out mental blocks within myself and wrote them down. I admitted my fear of success, fear of failure and began talking to friends. I was getting to the root of my discomfort—dealing and living with the unknown. I slowly opened my mind to accept my fear of the unknown. The personal growth I was working toward helped me shift my thinking and I began to become comfortable with uncertainty—as uncomfortable as it was.

I realized that moving out of my comfort zone was a process and that I could expand myself by doing things I had never done. I didn’t have to wait until I left my job. I
expanded my mind by allowing the unknown to become my friend rather than my enemy. Here, the unknown was available to me every day and I didn’t even know it until I looked for it. I took every opportunity I could imagine to do things differently. I realized that I had never valet parked, so I tried it. I always walked my dog one way around the block, so I walked her the other way. I got up earlier than I was used to. I ordered food that I never ordered before. I began to change my patterns and feel the discomfort of change in everyday activities. I became aware of my habits and how engrained they were in me. And I consciously began to make changes.

Over the next four months, I wrote affirmations on index cards and I read books about inner strength. I strengthened my relationship with myself and with God. I humbled myself, realizing that I needed spiritual guidance to make the break from this job. I went through so many emotions during this time. It was grueling. I struggled with thoughts that I might go crazy or be crazy if I really did leave this job. I wondered if there was something wrong with me for feeling I needed to leave.

I again needed to decide what I would do as an entrepreneur. This time I didn’t put together a business plan. I just made some strategic decisions about what I wanted to do. I gave up on the idea of publishing a magazine. I didn’t have the capital and didn’t want to spend the energy to get it. I evaluated my skills and realized that I really enjoyed helping companies succeed—that was what I did best. I also knew that I wanted to start a business without a lot of startup capital and that I wanted to promote my skills to my existing customer base. So I decided to keep this process simple and start out by positioning myself as a consultant.

I planned for about two months the date that I would give my notice and prepared myself for this day. I began to create the plan and the vision—I would leave my job in mid-November, take the month of December off and start a consulting project in January.

When mid-November came, I again gave notice. It was four months after my last attempt to leave my job. I was scared that I would fall back into my familiar pattern. But this time, I felt different. I didn’t have all of those scary and uncomfortable feelings. I became used to change—it wasn’t a shock to my body anymore and I felt remarkably calm and serene.

I made it to “the other side” and began entering new territory, full of uncertainty. I felt so relieved about having done what I couldn’t do twice before. I began to feel a new sense of freedom. I felt deep feelings of fulfillment in my life and recognized how much I had grown. I felt secure within myself and was awestruck as to how all the work I did on myself culminated into feelings of self-assuredness, the ability to let go of what was familiar, and the ability to feel OK with uncertainty. While I was still afraid, my fears were not crippling me anymore.

I prayed a lot during this time. I found it helpful to surround myself with people who were doing what I wanted to do and talked to a lot of supportive friends to help me feel confident that I wouldn’t go back. I was learning how to simply “be.” I was OK.

New, uncomfortable feelings surfaced after this initial “honeymoon” phase of feeling the relief from leaving my job. The first time I felt these new uncomfortable feelings was at a holiday party. I found that I didn’t have my job to talk about anymore and didn’t know what to talk about. I felt kind of weird in this “in between” space of not knowing where I was going on this entrepreneurial journey. I came to realize that these uncomfortable feelings were just additional opportunities for me to grow and I accepted them as such.

Fear was not the prevailing emotion any longer—willingness was. I was willing to grow through these changes as they came up and learned that I had many options. I could learn new skills; ask for help and request spiritual guidance.

My friend Gina, who had started a business that same year, had her business inside a business incubator. She was her own boss and I admired her for living the life I desired. I went to visit her at the business incubator in January. She told me that the coordinator of the incubator program had just left and the incubator needed a re-vamping. Gina said, “Suzanne, this would be a great consulting project for you.” From that moment on, things happened very quickly. The director of the program invited me into his office to discuss the possibility of me contracting to help the incubator. I negotiated a rate, established the number of hours I would work and determined the time span for the project.

I started this consulting project before I even had business cards. I went to the library to see about setting up a contract, wrote one up and I started working the following Monday. I began to trust this uncertainty thing. It was working. I didn’t understand it, but that didn’t matter. I was moving in the direction I wanted to move in. I continued to expand my everyday life by trying new things and expanding my world of uncertainty.

I discovered that getting and doing business was somehow different now that I was on my own. I didn’t have to meet hundreds of people to get clients. In my prior job, I would make 250 sales calls a week and book 15-20 appointments to build my sales. I worked myself to the bone to get business. Somehow, working on my own was different. New opportunities presented themselves in strange, coincidental ways.

Through the financial highs and lows of the first two years, I was tormented by fear of success, of failure and of not making enough money. I told myself I could always go back and get another job. From time to time, my old boss called to see if I wanted my job back.

His calls actually gave me confidence. I realized that I wasn’t stuck, that I was choosing my entrepreneurial lifestyle—the good times and the bad—and that I was making it, even if I was challenged financially. His calls also helped me realize that I was still employable and could always go back and get a paycheck if I really needed one.

I continued to get new projects. Some I turned down and some I accepted. I learned to trust the process of entrepreneurship. In my third year, a colleague asked if I’d be interested in a marketing director’s position for an international company. The pay was about three times what I was earning as an entrepreneur but I didn’t have to think twice. I said, “Thank you for the offer but no.” I realized that money didn’t come first. It never really did, but now I was certain that my needs came before any financial prospects. I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself for money anymore, even if that meant eating macaroni and cheese for dinner instead of steak.