134- The Pivot: Leaving Corporate America for Your Own Path

134- The Pivot: Leaving Corporate America for Your Own Path
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to the MaYapinion Podcast. I'm your host, Maya Roffler, and this is a show where I share my opinions on entrepreneurship and leadership for women. Today I'm really excited to talk to you about pivoting. Pivoting is a really big topic in the entrepreneurial world, and just in. The leadership and corporate world in general, and there's so many different things we can talk about with pivoting, but today I'm going to be talking about pivoting from your corporate job and pivoting from maybe your nine to five or maybe your stay at home mom and you wanna pivot back into a career, or you're wanting to pivot into creating your own business.

To go back, I mentioned this briefly in my episode on failure that was out last week about pivoting and how we were gonna talk about pivoting. This episode is going to focus mostly on [00:01:00] pivoting from like your nine to five or your corporate job, or whatever you're currently doing into building your own business, building your own entrepreneurial dream.

Whatever you're looking at doing. That's what we're gonna talk about today. On the next episode, I'm going to talk about pivoting in the sense of entrepreneurship because once we get into our business or our career that we're wanting to do independently, sometimes we need to pivot to make things work.

So that's coming on the next episode, but first, and there's so many different things we can talk about with pivoting, so I'll probably do more episodes on pivoting down the pike, but these are the two. Topics in pivoting that I really want to discuss. While we're doing this relaunch, and while we're talking about it, because they were so important to me in my initial journey, and then as I've continued down this journey of entrepreneurship, I've had to pivot several times.

So I want to talk about that. So today we're gonna talk about my initial [00:02:00] pivot and your initial pivot, whether you've already made that pivot, whether you've already left that corporate job behind, or you're maybe thinking about it wherever you are, you'll find some. Some great. Details and tips in this episode.

Even if you've already made the pivot, I think it will be helpful for you. And then next week we'll talk about pivoting. Well, we're already here. Okay, now we're here. We've created a business, or we've created a product or wherever we are in our journey. But where do we go next? Maybe if something's not working or we wanna adjust a little bit.

So we'll talk about that. But today we're gonna talk about the actual pivot from corporate America. So for me, I wanna share with you guys my pivot. For me, and some of you may know this from listening to my story already, my initial pivot, I remember feeling. After my brother died, I remember feeling like nothing was really that important.

I remember feeling before, for the several years I was in corporate [00:03:00] America, like it was the end of the world. If I, you know, if someone missed a deadline, which I never did that, or if, you know, we didn't maybe make our goal or it felt like the end of the world. That quickly changed for me. After my brother died, I felt like nothing was that important.

We weren't doing brain surgery. We weren't, we weren't rescuing people. This is not life or death and most corporate careers, it's, it's not life or death, but it feels like life or death. That was my pivot moment. I remember going into 2017 feeling like leaving all these jobs behind. I started doing contract and consulting work, but nothing was really hitting me that deeply.

I was not feeling super inspired. It just didn't feel that important anymore. And a lot of us who have gone through loss, which most of us have, feel that way, right? We're like, this is not that serious. I just went through something really serious. That [00:04:00] was my moment of pivoting, and I think we all get that inspiration to leave our corporate job or our nine to five or whatever we're doing when it just doesn't feel.

That fulfilling anymore. It just doesn't feel that important anymore. There's so many different things. So I would encourage you to explore that. I'm gonna go through some tips in a few minutes on this episode, which you can do if you're kind of like, wow, this sounds like me. Like it doesn't feel like that important anymore.

It doesn't feel that crazy. I just don't feel that invested anymore. That's okay. We're gonna talk about it. But for me, that was my experience. So I realized that. I needed to really sit there and think about like what did I want and what, how was I gonna get that? And that didn't really happen overnight, but that was like my aha moment.

I was like, this isn't brain surgery. I need more autonomy over what I'm doing. And I also needed to heal myself. So that was another aspect in the inspiration for what I was [00:05:00] doing.

Another part of talking about pivoting. Another part that I think is really important is the aspect of a lot of people that are coaches out there, like business coaches and leaders and, and I've done a lot of that work and I will continue to work with you guys. Who join our, our events and our programs.

But I, I don't really like to call myself a coach. I think it's more mentor and like, I like to share, but I have , a hangup with this because I feel like there's a lot of gatekeepers out there and they say, oh my God, join my program and I'll show you how to pivot, or I'll show you how to like, leave corporate America.

I'll show you how to do all these things. We're just talking about it here. I'm sharing with you because I think it's really important that we don't gate keep this information. We just share it because if it's, that's a whole other episode and I'll do an episode on gatekeeping as well, but I just, it gets so frustrating to me.

That's why I wanna be so raw and open and honest always with you guys, because for me, I just felt unfulfilled and I want it to be able to do more than one thing. And that that's also what came from the pivoting. I'm like, oh God, I just, I [00:06:00] don't wanna be dialed into just one thing, which. I will say when you first pivot and you leave corporate America, you do need to be dialed into one thing.

But my inspiration came from doing this show and creating this show in April, 2017. I realized, oh, I can have this and I can have my corporate career, I was dialed into one aspect corporate wise, but this was starting to become a passion, and your passion can also become something that you're driving revenue from and driving business from.

So I don't ever want anyone to think that, you know, you just have to do one thing, but when you're first leaving corporate, it's really important to dial into one thing because you have to make. Money you have to replace the income that you're making from your job so that you can't expand and do other things.

So having that clear vision is really, really important. So the other part of pivoting is looking at what makes you happy and what success looks like for you. So oftentimes when we wanna leave corporate, we've kind of [00:07:00] maybe hit the ceiling. For me, I felt like I had hit the ceiling. I felt like. I was work like when I went into consulting and then also like in 2017 to 2019, I was working contract, but I was technically still working for people and I was noticing that I was constantly working for like the owners and the founders of these companies.

I was like the right hand person. I was very close to them, and I knew that was kind of the end. That was the end of the rope. I wasn't going to go much further than that. How could I, right. It was. They were the owners. They were the founders, and I loved that because I felt like I was learning so much from them, but I knew I needed to pivot again, even from going from my corporate job and my corporate position.

Then I needed to pivot again so that I could. Be my own, the owner, founder and pick my path a little bit more strategically. So it was another pivot that happened for me, which this will happen several times and I'll get into it in the next episode a little more. But the initial pivot was me feeling like this wasn't brain [00:08:00] surgery, this wasn't the end of the world.

How do I get more autonomy for myself? How am I gonna get gigs for myself or work for myself? And. Feel more, more balance, which the joke is on me 'cause you end up working more. But it was a little more on my terms and that's evolved even more. And that's been a part of my additional pivots that have happened.

But entrepreneurship and creating your own business lets you define success in a way where it's personal versus where you're working. When you're working for a corporation or a business or wherever you are or an organization, whatever it is, they outline. Success. They outline the mission statement, which they should.

They should. But I think , a good green flag for you to know that you're ready to pivot away from, from this is when you realize, I wanna define my own success. I want to define what this means for me. I have a clear vision of what I. Want to do, and this [00:09:00] is how I wanna define it. So here are a couple steps in a pivot plan, as I like to call it, that will help you kind of define and let me make sure I'm getting these exactly right for you guys because it is a process.

Okay? So the pivot plan. It's a five step plan on how you can kind of take this information today and look at what you're doing currently. Maybe if you're thinking about leaving, maybe if this is the first time you're thinking about leaving, maybe you've been thinking about it for a really long time, but here are some steps that helped me and I want them to help you as well.

So step one is get clarity. I've already kind of danced around that a couple times. Get clarity. Get honest on why you wanna leave. Like, why do you wanna leave? Are you burnt out? Do you want freedom? Do you feel like you've hit the wall kind of, or the glass ceiling on how much money you can make?

These are all wonderful reasons on, on why you can leave, like, and why you want to leave. But give very clear 'cause this is gonna help you. This is going to help you understand why [00:10:00] you're leaving and also like help you drive through all of your goals. It's fine. Like, it, it can be something like I am, I'm sick of working for someone else.

That was a reason I left. It can be something really great. Like you, you're wanting, you have this idea and you're like, I have this idea and I think it's better than the place that I've been working, and I think I can do better. Then that's okay too. But understand that because your vision then is going to align with your values.

So like whatever's important to you is going to align with your values. Then I want you to take an inventory of your skills. So what that means. So that's step two. And what that means is looking at, okay, what am I good at? What am I good at? And also, what do, what do you not like doing? Look at those things.

So what are my skills? So using myself as an example, when I left corporate, and then even when I was doing contract work, and I still do contract work now, but this was like. You know, I had heavier contracts where they took up 40 hours of my week, 30 hours of, of my week. It was different, [00:11:00] but I was looking at, okay, how am I going to offer my services?

Like what? What am I great at? For me, obviously I've been doing events for a really long time. I had event planning skills, I had sales skills. I have all these skills still, but like this is how I was building my different services and different things I could offer. So that's really important. So be honest with yourself and also be honest with yourself about what you don't like to do.

In the beginning, you're still gonna have to do things that you don't like to do, especially when you're starting a business, because let's say you don't like doing accounting, you're still going to have to do those things because you're gonna be a small business. But I want you to be get very clear about your vision.

Think about values, why are you doing this? And then step two, your skills. Write this down. Write down your skills. What are you strong at? What are you great at? Write down what you're not so great at. And then also write down what you don't like to do. So that can be a goal for the future, that you can eliminate those things from your job, whether that's bringing in other contractors to help you, other folks in your business to help you, or just partners.

'cause I have some great [00:12:00] partners that I call in for things. Start before you're ready. So a lot of people, this is step three. A lot of people say, oh, you know what I'll, the holidays are coming up. I wanna make sure I have my job. I will start this in January. Start it now. Start it now. Because it's much easier to start a consulting business or a contracting business.

Or start maybe you're, you're gonna sell something online. Whatever it is you're gonna do. It's easier to start it now while you still have your corporate job and you're like, oh, but my, I am working 50, 60, 70 hours a week. I get it. I totally get it. Make time to start this now. Begin before you're ready because it's a lot easier to allow yourself to fail and fail, like we talked about last week, on last week's episode.

It's a lot easier to fail when you have an income safety net. That's step four. But before I jump to that, I want you to understand that yes, it's difficult. I know you're working 50, 60, [00:13:00] 70 plus hours a week in your corporate job or your job that you're doing, and you're like, I really wanna start this.

Like, how do I create that balance? The reality is again, start it now. Start before you're ready so that you can create this safety net. So, jumping to step four, the safety net. I don't want you to leave your corporate job and just leave it all behind, and you've got maybe a couple clients coming in and you can't even support yourself.

That's not a good transitional phase. It's not a good transitional phase. I want you to feel secure. You've gotta take a leap. There's a balance between taking a leap of faith and. Just jumping into the abyss with nothing. That's not what I recommend. So the best thing you can do by building your safety net, you can save your money, reduce expenses, but also it really ties into step three by starting before you're ready and building this as a side hustle, testing things before you go in.

A hundred percent. [00:14:00] That's something that I did, but then I was kind of pushed off into the deep end in 2020 because of the pandemic. I'm grateful for that, and I'm grateful that I had the ability to do that and the risk. But look, a lot of you have mortgages and kids and families and so many financial expenses.

You've gotta think about insurance. All of these things that a lot of people don't talk about, and I talk about them. I'm like, we're gonna think about this. We're gonna talk about this. It's a very real thing. So. Think about that as you're building your safety net. I don't want you to leap until you have a harness attached to you to catch you when you fall.

It's just like doing a bungee jump, right? You're gonna take that risk. You're gonna jump, but you want something that's going to at least catch you when you fall. When will you know it's time to make the leap? So this is step five. There's never gonna be a perfect time. There's never going to be a perfect time to make the final leap to leave that corporate [00:15:00] job.

Something I love to say is, courage is not the absence of fear. It's action despite it. So for me, I was absolutely terrified when. 2020 came around. I was in the event business. Now I have other businesses, so it doesn't terrify me if a pandemic comes around or something happens again, God forbid.

But at the time, the event business was one of the most dramatically impacted businesses out there. I had to pivot in my business, which I went to virtual. So I'll talk more about next week. I was terrified at the time and I had no idea what I was doing, and I was like, oh my God, how am I gonna do this?

But I took the leap because I felt like if I didn't, then if I didn't jump, then I was never going to jump. It was kind of one of those moments of you're on a bungee and you're like, if I don't do this now, so I felt like I had to do it, but I just [00:16:00] encourage you to make the leap when you feel like it's that moment.

Think about like standing somewhere, like when you're you, you feel like this urge and you're like, I either do it now or never. Like now, or never. You're not gonna feel ready. You're never gonna feel a hundred percent ready, but trust your intuition when your intuition is like, I think this is my moment.

So to recap all of these steps, get clarity, understand where you're at, like why am I wanting to do this? It could be as superficial as, I wanna make more money, and that's fine, that's an okay reason to do this. Or it can be super deep I wanna spend more time with my family, or I want more work-life balance.

That's not gonna happen right away, but it, it's definitely an achievable thing that can happen. Or I want more autonomy. I want, you know, or I wanna focus more on this aspect of my, of the business that I've been in at the corporate level. Great. Get clarity on that. Do a skills inventory. What are you good at?[00:17:00] 

What do I wanna do? What don't I wanna do? It's really important too. Start before you're ready. You're never gonna be ready. Oh, I'll start on January 1st. You're never gonna be ready. So just start. Just start and look your first contracts or your first things that you do. Like your first projects that you do, your first, you know, if you're creating.

Some kind of workshop for people. If you're creating some kind of podcast or whatever you're creating, it's gonna suck. It's not going to be awesome. The first time, it might be okay. It might be horrible, but start before you're ready because by the time you feel ready, you've already got some things under your belt.

That's much better than starting when you feel like you're ready because you're never really ready, and then you're never gonna start build your safety net. That can mean many different things. That can mean staying on with corporate. While you're doing this at night or you're doing this early in the mornings, depending on when your job is, weekends, you have to make some sacrifices, guys.

You have to, people are always [00:18:00] like, oh, but I work so much, and Yep, we all do. And we all did before we started this. So if you wanna have that safety net built in, it's important that you are doing things simultaneously. And that's not the answer a lot of people wanna hear, but in my opinion, it's one of the most important things to hear about the safety net conversation.

'cause I don't want you to get so into your safety net that you stay at your job, that you have a goal, that with the safety net step and part of this, that you're saying, okay, like this is a means to an end. What is the end? And am I putting some money aside? Am I investing in my side hustle so it can become my full-time hustle?

That's important. And then make the leap because you're never gonna be a hundred percent ready. But that the moment you feel the urge to make that leap. Yeah. And that it, it's that moment. You're going to know in your intuition if you feel like, oh, if you're making excuses. You [00:19:00] know, it's probably time to push yourself off that ledge and go, because for me it was so scary to do this in 2020.

It was absolutely so scary. And also being in one of the most impacted industries. But I have just never been so grateful and happy that I did something. And for me, all it took was one client who I had worked on a couple shows with before she was coming up with virtual. Conferences, and she needed someone to build these conferences out and sell for her and do several different things for her logistically, and she was willing to pay a retainer.

So I gave her what I felt was a fair retainer at the time, especially going into the pandemic. And it was enough to cover my bills. It wasn't making as much as I had made before, but I had built a safety net. I had sold one of my condos. I built a safety net, and she said, yes. And when that happened, I knew, [00:20:00] okay, I had, my first client had some other little contractual gig gigs I was doing on the side, and I felt comfortable enough, and I knew it was time.

Now, I didn't feel like amazing about it because it wasn't as much money as I had been making, but I knew if I just pushed myself off of the ledge, the ledge at that point, then I would know what to do. And it was difficult. It was very difficult, but it was definitely the right moment to jump. So I hope this has been helpful for you if you're thinking about making that pivot from corporate life to entrepreneurship and just maybe even building a side hustle.

So don't forget to follow us at Maya Roffler and MaYapinion Podcast on all major social media platforms. And if you are thinking about making the pivot, don't forget to DM me and reach out and we'll see you again next week here. On MaYapinion. 

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