One Simple Event And I Was Never The Same

This is a guest submission by Justin from IgniteYourEssence.com

I always consider my transition from employee to entrepreneur as nothing less than a complete leap of faith. If I were coaching or consulting with an aspiring entrepreneur right now, I would suggest a much more structured and careful approach to the whole thing.

Having said that, I believe that my willingness to “let go” and trust that I could figure things out is what ultimately led me to changing my life forever.

Journey Down An Unfulfilling Path

My career path was extremely traditional. I went to university to study computers and then went on to the corporate world as a software trainer and technical sales rep. Like most people, I was following the “safe” path and being a “responsible” person. I was doing everything I could to ensure I had a stable financial future and plenty of opportunity to grow within a company.

While there were certain aspects of the job I didn’t mind, for the most part I hated doing it. Despite my best efforts, I could never get my heart 100% into my work (even though I was doing very well from a financial perspective).

I would constantly daydream of the day I would retire and then immediately become depressed thinking about how far away that event seemed. I even started investing my money into some ridiculous scams that promised huge profits…thinking that a whole bunch of money would solve my problem and let me escape from this world early.

Until I was about 27 years old, I had simply assumed that this was all there was to life. I didn’t even consider the fact that there were millions of other people in the world living a completely different lifestyle.

Then in the fall of 2006, on the same day I found out my wife was pregnant with our first son, I happened to watch the movie “The Secret” which I’m sure most people have seen. Regardless of your opinion of that movie, it was the catalyst that made me start questioning everything in my life.

Broadening My Vision

From my career decisions, to my relationships, to my overall attitude in general, it became clear to me very quickly that I had been living my life in sort of a tunnel vision mode. I started questioning everything. I realized how many assumptions I had been making. Assumptions that were actually making me feel trapped, frustrated and living in a way where I was giving all of my power and freedom over to something else (employers, bill collectors, etc…).

That event was the first incident that ultimately changed everything for me. As soon as that movie was over, I turned on CNN and saw some of the speakers from The Secret doing a live interview with Larry King.

The fact that they happened to be on that same evening was pretty crazy. I then got super interested in personal development programs and speakers. I was basically having my eyes opened to a world that I never knew existed before. It was so inspiring.

I spent the next 8 months or so reading and listening to tons of different personal growth and entrepreneurial type of programs. Since I was commuting to work, sometimes in my car for up to 3 hours a day, I had plenty of time to invest.

You can only listen to these kinds of programs for so long before your behavior is impacted. It was then that I started formulating plans to start my own company and more importantly, plan an exit from the 9-5 grind.

The End Of One Road and Down Another

Another 8 months later (16 months from the day when I first watched The Secret), I actually did resign from my career. A place where I had spent 3 years of schooling to prepare for and then 7 years of long hours and travel to build a 6 figure salary.

What was my plan? Well my goal was to sell personal development coaching, seminars and programs. I created a few small events at the beginning and I found a few speaking gigs and coaching opportunities. But in reality, I had very little experience, very little confidence and absolutely no idea how to build a company.

Should I have figured some of these things out ahead of time before losing the full time salary? Probably… but I also believe that all successful entrepreneurs need to have a certain degree of boldness and MUST NOT be bound to security.

Successful entrepreneurs need to be OK with the fact that there is no guaranteed paycheck coming along every few weeks. And the sooner you can deal with that, the sooner you can be truly free.

In a perfect world, a person who wants to go from employment to freedom would be able to build a company on the side, grow the profits to a point where the income is at least equal to (or even greater than) their current salary and then make a calculated transition out of the job life.

In the real world, new business owners must be prepared for ups and downs. They must be prepared to deal with fluctuations in their business, in their client base, in their marketplace and especially in their income.

I’m not saying that you pull a Justin and just up and leave your job with barely any plan, but what I am saying is that there will be no perfect time to act, no guarantees and plenty of adversity.

But that’s what you want isn’t it? That’s the whole point of getting out of a job; to get away from the mundane repetitive, uninspiring work that you have been doing.

But I digress. I credit my move from employee to entrepreneur as the source of incredible growth and happiness in my life. I have never felt so free, so inspired, so motivated for the work I do. I have developed huge levels of self confidence that simply didn’t exist before.

I have strengthened my relationship with my wife who has been an incredible supporter of my dream. I work from home most days and have been an active part of my children’s lives for the past 4 years.

I have been present for every important family event and I surely would have missed out on many of these things had I still been putting in time in the corporate world.

I hope my story helps you reach your tipping point where you make that big decision and start moving in the direction of your ultimate purpose in life. Go for it and enjoy the ride.

Justin Popovic is an online marketer, coach and speaker. He lives just north of Toronto with his wife and 2 boys. Justin runs a popular content creation business called Best Quality PLR among a number of other membership sites and programs.

He credits much of his success to his personal development education and he blogs about it at IgniteYourEssence.com which happens to be the #1 website on Google for “success coach”. You can also check out his personal blog at justinpopovic.com for his online marketing portfolio.

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