Don't Quit Your Day Job, Yet!

Remember Robert Kyosaki’s Cash Flow Quadrant? What if you are in the E/employee portion of the Cash Flow Quadrant, and you are not sure how to get to S/Self Employed or B/Business Owner areas of the quadrant? Your day job seems to be taking up a good portion of your day, and even when you are not working you are thinking about all of the things that are going on at work. You’d like to close the door on your day job and focus on your true purpose, but how do you put your day job in the right perspective so that you can free up some mental space to work on developing a business around your true purpose? Hint – it’s not by quitting your day job and jumping in head first. As my coach taught me, you first must come from a place of power. You might be thinking, “What’s a place of power, Peter?” Hang on, we’ll get there.

Sean McCabe in his book, “Overlap”, does a good job of making the case for hanging on to your day job until it is time to go full time into your true purpose business. The biggest reason to hang on to your day job is to give yourself sustenance while you develop your business. If you are desperate, you will compromise your standards. Why? If you quit your day job to start your true purpose business and you do not have enough customer flow, i.e. revenue, you will compromise your standards just to make ends meat. Hanging onto your day job allows you to pick clients that meet your standards and / or sell your products at your target pricing to build your business to a point that it will support you. At this point, you are in a place of power that will allow you to dive into your true purpose business full-time.

All that said, there are several reasons that you may want to quit your day job and get a new one to act as a bridge to working in your true purpose business full-time.

1. Your Day Job is Crushing Your Spirit. If you have a toxic work environment that drains your energy so that you have nothing left after work hours to pour into you true purpose business, then you need to find something else that is more supportive of your goals.
2. Your Day Job and True Purpose Business are in the Same Industry. Why is this important? If you are pouring all of your energy into your day job because it lights you up, you may not have anything left after hours to build your business around the same purpose. This certainly is not always the case. Just something to be aware of and make a change if needed.
3. Your day job must cover your bills including any expenses associated with starting your true purpose business. Why? Again, if you don’t have sustenance, then you will be desperate to make money. Find a day job that covers 100+% of your bills so you don’t have financial concerns clouding your creative energies.

When is it time to say doodbye to your day job? When you have generated enough income from your true purpose business to cover 100+% of your bills and you have a high level of confidence on future revenue flows. You should have more than one good revenue month behind you and/or commitments for revenue generation several months in advance. If you want to add even more power in your favor, build up your savings to cover 6 months of expenses before you shut the door on your day job.

There is one last thing to be aware of on your journey - golden handcuffs. What’s that? A day job that has so many good benefits that it is hard to leave behind. Just make sure you are aligned to your true purpose, and golden handcuffs will not even cross your mind.

So, where are you at on your journey of building your true purpose business? Leave a comment or send me an email and let me know. Pass this blog on to others that may benefit. Have a great week!