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I think the best decision I ever made professionally was to walk away from corporate America. March 2003 is when I made the decision to be self employed and launched my own business. Some days I thought to myself what am I doing? But then other days when I would chat with friends who were still dealing with employers and miserable every single day, I am extremely grateful for the decision I made to quit corporate America.
I started out working for a large oil company in Ohio. It was a great company and they helped me get through college with the tuition reimbursement program they offered to all employees. After a while though, this successful oil company was bought out by a larger international company and it quickly lost the employee focus and became focused on cuttings costs, expanding pipelines, and just wasn’t an enjoyable place to work at anymore.
When it was truly torture to work at this company, I had no fear, so I resigned and went to work for a toy company. I actually loved MOST of my job but there were some things that just didn’t sit right with me. The senior management received large bonuses and raises every year. ONLY the senior management. No other employee received bonuses and the raises did not compare percentage wise with what the senior managers received. How did I know this? I worked for the president of the company and was privy to this information.
About the same time, my husband was transferred to Miami and a whole new life emerged. Began working with another toy company and the same issues that the Ohio toy company had, this company had. Again only senior management received raises and bonuses. The other 99% of employees received nothing and were many times frightened they would lose their jobs. This just wasn’t an environment I wanted to be in any more. I had had enough and have never regretted the day I made the decision to do so. I had my experience, education and professionalism in my back pocket. I never left on bad terms and to this day am friendly with the owners of these companies. The difference? I now own my own companies.
As most of our readers know, we live in a rural part of Florida and have been blessed with being able to live and operate our business on our property. As I am working on a portion of a new book we are going to be introducing soon to our MIS readers, I find myself thinking about how many others may want to walk away from a job they absolutely hate and how I can help them. We receive emails and people often ask me when I meet them in person – how did you do it? It’s not an easy decision especially if you are entrenched in what often feels like quicksand. Trying to make ends meet while raising a family. I hear you and I understand that.
Let me give you this to get you started. Sit down when it is quiet in your house and write down in detail how you see your perfect day with your home business running and successful. Take your time and be very detailed. Often the first step you need is to be able to visualize what you want and that will prompt you to take the next step. The next step will be to figure out WHAT you WANT to do and be able to make enough money to support yourself and your family.
Your minimalist lifestyle will help you achieve your dream of being self employed. It did for me.
Keep an eye out for more posts on starting your own business while maintaining your minimalist lifestyle. Next week we’ll be launching an entry for our Decluttering Series. Our Share Your Story series will begin on July 22nd.
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