Courage and Detail Planning: Working for Yourself with Your Scentsy Family Business

After 15 years in the IT field, I knew I wanted to get out of this field. My family needed more time and I needed to have flexibility. If anything I had picked up from my MBA courses was this – you need a plan. Not just any plan, a detailed and carefully thought out plan. In my case, the plan needed careful planning because the plan was not just affecting my life, but my family’s life as well. And this was how it started for us:

Last year, our friends approached us with a business idea. At first, we thought – OK, but was not sure about the idea. Then we thought, why not take the chance. We had the financial security and now we have support from our friends. So, we thought, why not give it a shot. Even if we lose money, at least we took a chance at it.

And that’s when our plan was born. We knew if this thing worked out, we would be able to save money. Also we knew how much we wanted to save before it was ok for me to quit my regular IT job. With our financial goal in mind, we carefully devised a detailed plan. We knew the figure we needed and wanted. Little by little we got there.

Now we were able to save to that figure, I needed courage, courage to really step from the corporate world and be my own boss. Questions flooded my mind. “Can I do this?” “Can I really do this?” “How do I do this?” “What if I failed?” As the questions came in, I started to feel stress and excited. How is that possible, I wondered because shouldn’t stress and excitement be two different types of emotions? I’ve never been this excited or stressed about anything in a long time. Then I thought to myself, I can do this – I really can. I mean, my husband and I planned this for a year. We knew the day would come for me to be courageous and venture out. With his support and everything, I turned in my notice at work. And it was not easy but I did it!

As I sit here on my third day off, I wanted to write this article to plant a seed or at least let people about my experience. I wanted to let them know how I did it. Whether you are staying home forever to raise your kids or start a new business, remember this advice.

First, take the time to devise a plan that will work for your family. Have a savings. Let me say that again. Have a savings. Whatever the figure is – save enough to get you there. Don’t just quit without the savings because without that security you will take risks that are unplanned and short term. And these types of risks are not good in the long run.

Then have courage. Courage goes a long way. You need courage to turn in your notice and to step outside your comfort zone and take the plunge. You need courage to step away from a regular paycheck. You need courage to guide you through the problems that seems to not have resolutions. You need courage to shut out negative comments about your decision to venture out. You need courage to realize that you can do this, you can and will succeed.

Good luck and enjoy your time!