Corporate Girl Gone Mad?

[larahaynes-blog]

Never say never…

How is it I can set off with such a clear defined goal of what I wanted to do when I left Banking and only 11 months later end up on a completely different journey?

When I left Banking last June, I did so telling myself I never wanted to work in Financial Services ever again and with a very clear defined goal of wanting to climb the ladder in Network Marketing. As an aside, purely to bring the pennies in (whilst I built my Network Marketing business), I did remote freelance Business Support Services (BSS), however by accident I found myself working with some very interesting small businesses and my interest in my BSS business developed further. Working with smaller business has made me feel like I am making a bigger impact, which is what I am thriving on, instead of having to jump through hoops to make a difference.  

So here I am now working with amazing entrepreneurs supporting their business remotely including a very successful Network Marketer (who has done it the “right” way), Landscape Gardener, successful IT entrepreneur who is now running amazing Parentpreneur Programs and an Independent Financial Advisor – yes remember I said I never wanted to go back into Financial Services! Hmmm. All of these people are making a huge difference to people’s lives in very different ways, I find it fascinating and exciting that I am part of it all.

On reflection, it was actually the Corporate World and its set up I no longer liked, that feeling of being a cog in a huge wheel just wasn’t for me anymore and I wanted to get away from it and some of the unsavoury characters I unfortunately came a cropper to at the end and not the Financial Services Industry itself.  

So how did it happen? I was approached by an old colleague who is now an Independent Financial Advisor - he was desperate for a Paraplanner, I had capacity, I would be able to put my qualification to good use and if I am totally honestly I was desperate for the money. It is ok to say that we need the money, as the first couple of years in business is tough and I will openly admit I found it horrendous, from a decent salary to then a zero income, completely reliant on my husband with two huge mortgages to pay, having never had to rely on anyone else since leaving home at 16 – a situation I never want to find myself back in.

I must admit, I felt I had failed myself when I agreed to go into Paraplanning as I had so clearly told myself all along “I never want to go back into Financial Services” and here I was going back on my word. As it happens and this is where I eat my hat, freelancing for one-man band is so far removed from working within a huge organisation that I have found I am enjoying it far more than I imagined, loving it in fact! Yes, the red tape and regulation that the FCA put upon us is annoying but that’s beyond our control so not much point moaning about it. Being a Paraplanner is a little like being a Private Detective, you have to know everything about your clients, which suits me down to the ground because I’m very nosey and like to know everything about people.

So after starting off doing one thing, I’ve ended up doing something totally different and even in the process of looking into two other businesses where I have particular passions - Networking and helping people in stressful jobs with busy lives to manage how they feel about the world so watch this space on those. Why look into other businesses when I have so much going on you may say? Well I am loving it that’s why! When you love what you do it does not feel like work more like a hobby so as long as that continues I will continue to follow my passions.

Something else I thought I would never do in a million years either is Public Speaking after historically being terrified at the thought!  Fast forward 11 months and guess what?! I’m a Public Speaker, sharing my journey with lots of other hopefuls in the Corporate world that there is more to life.

So the moral of the story here guys…. Is never say never, as you may end up eating your hat! I also said that I would never go self-employed (I was risk averse at the time) and look how that ended up!

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[larahaynes-blog]

Recently I noticed I had developed a very unpleasant addiction...to my mobile phone !!

Being self-employed is amazing and I wouldn't change it for the world, however unless you are careful it also comes with huge guilt. Guilt that you must be constantly busy, scan your Social Media every 10 minutes (just in case you miss something), reply to emails and messages immediately...the list goes on and the head spins further.

This addiction is something I have been aware of for a long time and was desperate to break. The tipping point for me was the evening myself and my husband sat down to watch a film and I clocked every time I checked my phone which I'm ashamed to admit was every 5-10 minutes over a 2 hour period. To say I was disgusted in myself would be an understatement. This very precious time I had set aside to spend with someone I love was being taken away.

So what have I done about it:

1. Invested in an alarm clock so that my phone now never goes to bed with me (having previously used it as my alarm) and bedtime is indeed bedtime and not more phone time.

2. My phone now goes into a different room in our house between the hours of 7-8pm of an evening, every evening and more on weekends.

3. And today, I took a bold move to delete my emails from my phone and allocate specific times each day to respond to all my messages which I will do via my laptop.

But what if its something urgent you say ? Well, I have come to the conclusion that if anyone wants me that desperately then I have a home phone that I can be contacted on and also a front door that has a bell so please feel free to go old fashioned and ring it :)

[larahaynes-blog]

The importance of Goal Setting... I only adopted goal setting over the last 12 months since leaving my Corporate Job, having previously mocked it. I needed to do it at the time to give me focus. The results achieved have been phenomenal! I've officially achieved more in less than 12 months than I did in my previous 33 years on this earth. For those of you sceptical, I would highly recommend you give it some more thought.

[larahaynes-blog]

Self Employed Guilt

When I had a “normal” job…Did I feel guilty when I went home on a Friday? Went on holiday? Left early? No, guilt was something I never felt…What I did feel however was overwhelming stress for not having been able to complete my workload or tick off that last thing on the “to do” list, combined with a horrible feeling of dread about having to come back to it and not just having to come back to my outstanding work but going back into a soulless office full stop.

Since I left that “normal” job behind 9 months ago, those roles have now reversed. I no longer experience the dread of work or stress but what I now feel is an overwhelming feeling of guilt when I am not working.

At the same event I talked about on my last blog, I asked the speakers a question about whether they suffered from what I call the “self-employed guilt”. For me, this usually kicks in when you take a day off or for not working the 24 hours a day 7 days a week that some successful entrepreneurs claim they do? And if they did indeed experience it, how did they manage it? Their answer…yes they experienced it, in particular when they had to leave their children and pets (after all they are part of the family) however they also believed this same guilt drove them to work harder. Both fantastic women and highly successful but their overriding opinion was that to be successful you had to work like a workhorse. This mirrors a lot of what I have heard many successful people claim over the last nine months but why does it have to be that way? Why should you have to work 24 hours a day 7 days a week and make so many sacrifices to be successful? Is there indeed not another way? I believe there is.

I am not and have never been shy of hard work…I left home at the age of 16 with no family support so I had to do everything in my power to make sure I had money coming in to pay for my rent and food. The drive I had at the age remained with me right through till present day.

Since becoming self-employed, something that I have picked up on and feel massively uncomfortable with is that many successful entrepreneurs tell stories of how they worked night and day with no sleep and did what they had to do to get them to where they are now. But is this teaching us and our next generation that this is the only way we will ever be successful by following this path? Are we trying to turn people into robots? Are we creating a culture that people drive themselves into early graves because of this constant pressure?

Am I one of these types of people that can work like that? No, I am not. Nine months ago however, I would have disagreed and had tried to work a ridiculous number of hours, evenings and weekends, sacrificing the very things I had left employment to enjoy more time doing. I went freelance in June and by the December, just six months in, I was broken and knew something had to give, I was mentally and physically exhausted, although I managed to hide this all tremulously well, maybe I missed my calling and should have been an actress as no one suspected. I never told anyone how I was feeling, even my own husband because I was trying to create an image of being bulletproof. How stupid that was!  

In my last Blog I talked of honesty…. And in my old job, I believed my honesty was one of my downfalls, so I hid a lot of how I felt to protect myself. One of the things I promised myself I would never do again is go back to holding things in, however I found myself back in that cycle not allowing myself to see how much I was doing, putting myself under too much pressure to be successful and letting people on the outside think everything was wonderful.

And all of this was being driven by this horrendous guilt inside of me that if I stopped I would never be successful. I’ve become extremely passionate about this subject over the last few months since I’ve taken a step back and been kinder to myself. I’m now an avid supporter of changing this culture and teaching people it is ok not to work such long hours, it is ok to take a day off and you don’t have to follow in such extreme footsteps to become successful. I feel so much more successful now I am not exhausted, spending more time doing the things I love and most of all have regained my passion for what I am doing again which sadly I had lost in December.

Everyone is different, we each have had different things we have had to deal with in our lives, we have different limits so find what works for you and stick to it. Don’t benchmark yourself again someone else. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way, bizarrely in the same way I realised my Corporate career was not for me, when I was at breaking point.

I have totally changed the way I do everything now, unless absolutely necessary I will not work on a Sunday, I don’t get up at 6 am every day, I treat myself to a lie in till 7 am on most days which yes is only an hour but makes an amazing difference for someone who needs a lot of sleep. The hardest thing for me is now saying “no” to people, which yes eats me up inside at having to do so, however otherwise it will kill me and my passion for what I do…a situation I never want to be in every again.

[larahaynes-blog]

Are you born an Entrepreneur?

This week I attended an event supporting International Women’s Day with two amazing speakers, from very different backgrounds but with inspirational and thought provoking stories. Both of these ladies believed they were born Entrepreneur’s and from a very young age displayed these traits.

In my case, I believed I was not born an Entrepreneur or was I?

I know very little from my childhood so perhaps I did display that Entrepreneurial flair and have just never heard about it. Although through years of conditioning, that’s certainly what I had become to believe.

I left home at 16 and went straight into a part time college course 3 days a week and employment the remaining 4 so I could pay the bills and get by. I did not have the backing from family to support my rent or food bill never mind an Entrepreneurial flair so I truly believed I just did not have it inside of me and you needed lots of money to create your own business didn't you?

Whilst writing this something came to me…The course I chose at college was Beauty Therapy, because I had an admiration of a lady that ran a successful salon close by to where I lived and dreamed of having what she had.

Then another memory sprung to mind, around the age of 7, I invited other children into our home. I created tests similar to what they would have done at school, set up desks within my bedroom, gave them allocated times, gave myself the title of Teacher/Invigilator, marked them and gave feedback.

Are these memories I have Entrepreneurial traits? Maybe I was born with it and it was buried very deep under a bad childhood?

My journey out of Banking was been helped by me becoming part of a ready-made business within Network Marketing and over recent weeks I have been approached about becoming part of existing businesses and offered shares to help develop them to the next level, all very exciting projects but is that what I want? Do I not want something that is my own? An idea that I have created and something I have made special? Would it feel special knowing someone else had come up with the idea? Would it ever feel like it was my own?

Has this initial move just been a stepping stone? Recently I have started to feel a real yearning to develop something for myself? But without the constant reassurance from the like-minded people I have surrounded myself with these last few months I truly believe that that feeling would never have been uncovered.

I feel I have a vision for something that will be huge and that I will be able to put my own stamp on, create something that is true to my values, has integrity, honesty, allows me to be authentic, show emotion and honesty but be firm and at the same time empathetic and kind. Yet I've told myself all my life I'm not an Entrepreneur but am I?

I've also told myself all my life I wasn't a writer either but here I am writing so am I?

[larahaynes-blog]

After a turbulent period in my life, I decided to turn my hand to short blogging for a little therapy with my first subject being “Change”.

Why is it human nature for us to wait for a life changing event before we make a decision to change things in our life? 

It seems to be the norm for us to continue living a substandard existence before we have the bottle to do anything about it.

We then spend wasted time feeling sorry for ourselves instead of turning the experience into a positive as we are being given another chance.

I have been guilty of this, how many of you are ?