8 Things You Need to know Before Leaving your Boss
Everybody wants to be their own boss. It is the perfect job, perfect life, perfect rules, perfect working hours, perfect culture, perfect salary, everything created and dictated by none other than yourself.
What everybody sees is that being a Boss will give you flexibility and freedom to do just about whatever you want. Yes, it true. But what is often left unsaid, un-shown is that the struggle is real, before you reach the “perfectness” that you are striving for. The issues are real, the problems are real, the problems are much, much bigger than when you had all the problems with your own bosses, colleagues, company that you’re working for.
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Don’t keep telling yourself, “wait till I’m ready”. The truth is, nobody will ever be ready for anything. You can only be prepared. When we first started out, we just did it, without much thought. And then we struggled. This is what we learnt to help you be more prepared for your journey. We wish someone had told us all these before we started.
1. You need to prepare for at least 1 year of no pay or little pay
All business, big or small take time to start making money, or to break even. Whatever money that you might earn, you will always have to re-invest it for more stocks, for photography, for advertisements, for rental, for your staff. Whatever it is, your money will have to be re-invested into your business in order for it to grow.
All business, big or small take time to start making money, or to break even. Whatever money that you might earn, you will always have to re-invest it for more stocks, for photography, for advertisements, for rental, for your staff. Whatever it is, your money will have to be re-invested into your business in order for it to grow.
You can afford to not pay yourself, but you can’t afford to not pay your staff.
2. You need to prepare to sacrifice your social life, family life & all kinds of life
One of the most enticing parts about being your own boss is the freedom and luxury of time! But it will only really come after your business is more stable. It never comes when you are just starting out. In fact, when you’re just starting out, you need to commit twice or even thrice as much time as you have for your job.
And so, what you need to do, is to set expectations with your friends and family to allow them to understand that this period is the most taxing time of your career. The more supportive your family and friends are, the easier for you to focus on making your business work out.
You will have to be prepared to work day and night, night and day. Even public holidays when everybody else is resting, having fun. Why?
Because if you’re in business, you’re most likely selling something and the best time to sell something is when everyone else is out!
3. You need to prepare for no leaves or sick leaves
When you’re working for someone, someone you always fall sick. You always have situations at home, you always have food poisoning or diarrhea. You are just so sensitive to everything that you eat. And before you leave your boss, please make sure that you take care of your health. Because, you can’t see the doctor as and when you need anymore. You can’t claim. Well, you can claim but you are claiming from your own pocket. You will then realise how important is it to stay well and fit all the time, so that you can continue working long hours for your business. There will be no one else to replace you. No one will do it as well as you do, yet.
You will realise that despite how sh**** you are feeling, you still can work! Unlike times when you’re working for a boss, a slight cough and suddenly you’re not fit to work anymore! You suddenly become a superhuman!
You should also re-schedule your holiday plans till after everything is more stable. Like when operations can run without you being there all the time.
4. You need to prepare to be the hardest worker in your company
Unlike when you’re an employee and there’s always someone working harder than yourself. Because when you’re working for someone, there’s always a glass ceiling as to how “hard” you’re actually working. After all, why should you work so hard when the pay you get is always the same, or around the same. But now, the harder you work, the higher the chances of succeeding. Your employees will then have the same “employee mentality” as you once did.
You also need to work hard, to inspire your employees to work somewhere as hard as you. There’s this thing called the 2/3 rule where your employees are only 2/3 of you. So you determine how much is the 2/3.
5. You need to be prepared that there’s only 10% chance of you succeeding
90% of businesses fail. You need to do whatever it takes to be in that 10% of businesses that succeed.
As of 2018 in Singapore, 62,113 businesses were formed in 2017 and at the same time 48,259 businesses were ceased. It’s so easy to start a business, anyone can do it. The hardest part is maintaining it. There is only 1 chance for you to succeed and in order to give your best shot, you really need to be consistent in what you do.
There are days when we wake up, and we really don’t feel motivated. But we really still need to put in the same 100% (if not more) effort. When you’re working for your boss, you can afford to be temperamental. One day you feel super hardworking and you decide to be super efficient and the next day, after your boss scolded you, you can be super unproductive for the entire day. This is the luxury of being an employee that unavailable to all Small Bosses.
The 1 basic rule to be in the 10% that succeed is that you have to put in the same 100% effort, every single day, without fail, no matter how you are feeling.
6. You’re gonna be damn lonely
Small bosses only make up 8.4% of Singapore’s resident workforce. So you’ve got to be prepared that nobody will understand you, empathise with you or even believe in you.
Just imagine, you and your colleagues. Once you leave the company, the common topics among you and your colleagues will now be different. And most likely, they will tell you that you’re crazy for leaving such a good and stable job.
Whatever difficulties that you have, you will be going through it alone. The thing is this, we all have egos. When others don’t believe in us, the more we want to prove them wrong. When that happens, once things go wrong, we don’t want to show them that they are right. So, we keep everything to ourselves. To our families, we don’t want them to worry. To our “friends”, we wanna save our face. That’s when we really learn. That’s when you can only look for other small bosses or bosses who have been there and done that, and can understand us and guide us along.
So till then, it’s gonna be YOU against the WORLD.
7. You gotta be passionate about what you do
Unlike working for a boss, you can totally hate what you’re doing but still continue to do it every day. That’s because you’re doing it for the pay cheque you know you’re going to get at the end of the month.
But what if, your pay cheque is gonna be smaller or if its gonna be delayed till next month or the next, next month?
Will you still drag yourself to do the job that you hate? Or will you tender your resignation right away?
Things can get really hard. And when things get so hard, passion is the only thing that will keep you going. No body will do things that they hate for no body. But if you’re doing something that you enjoy, you can do it for free sometimes!
So before you leave your boss, you need to know that you’re going into business about something you are passionate about. Like something that you would die for.
8. There is no more boss to report to
You will only have to report to you, yourself. I think this is even harder than having someone to hold your accountable for. “You” are the biggest demon of all. The master of all distractions, procrastinations, inefficiencies. And now that you don’t have to report to anyone, it’s like all hell is going to break loose.
You will need more self-discipline, self-control, willpower than ever. You will need to be more motivated than ever. If you don’t trust yourself, don’t do it.
I am the least disciplined person and I’m glad this journey has made me more disciplined. I learnt that self discipline is hard. But life without self discipline is even harder. Having a business partner also helped made me more accountable. You might want to consider getting a business partner to go into this venture together.
Having said all that, I hope you are now more prepared for this journey! No matter how hard it is, it is still gonna be worth it because you’re going to be a small boss! Being a small boss will definitely help you grow and become a better person. If you have ever considered leaving your job to do your own thing, do it, or regret it for the rest of your life!