I’ve spent a lot of time counseling corporate workers who wish they could moonlight as entrepreneurs (including myself). I always noticed two main things keep people from getting started:
- They think they don’t have enough skills, and
- They think they don’t have enough time.
Adjust to the Paradigm Shift
In order to become an entrepreneur and still succeed at your corporate career, you need to strike a balance between optimizing your earnings at work without adding to your responsibilities and time commitment.
Do this without doing anything destructive to jeopardize your income — then you’re ready to focus on what you’ll do with your free time.
Of course, the first step to becoming a successful entrepreneur is educating yourself. You need to pick an effective business model in a lucrative niche, develop a strategy for growth, and the rest. It’s not something you can learn overnight.
But luckily, it is a process you can start today, if you just make good use of your time. When I first started refocusing my life to achieve more, I began by going on a 30-minute to hour walk every day while listening to a podcast or audiobook about entrepreneurship. Combining exercise with education helped me get more done, and sharpened my focus on other entrepreneurial tasks.
Take Advantage of Help When You Have It
Another huge opportunity I see in a lot of families is a spouse that’s un- or underemployed as well. You’re in this retirement planning boat together, why not work as a team on a venture to help achieve it?
After taking time off work for family, my wife found it very difficult to reenter her field. We ended up taking a different route, and now she’s an integral player in running our online businesses. Even if your spouse and you both have full-time jobs, you can still work together to optimize your nights and weekends to build a new business.
Join our online community to discuss other tactics to become an entrepreneur while keeping your day job.
You can also learn many more tips and strategies in the No Nest Egg Retirement Plan, Section Three: Solving the Biggest Financial Conundrums.