Written by: Tracey Kirungi, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
These are my five steps to help you understand the shift in mentality needed to transition from a 9-5 to entrepreneurial living. Everyone’s journey is different and there’s no one rule for all.
This will help you disseminate the right ideas into the right factors that will change your life.
Sow the different seeds of change and eventually, you’ll have your own garden.
1. When it's time to leave, listen to your soul and go! It would be best to be self-aware of your value if you want to turn it into an entrepreneurial career that fulfils you. Without shrewd self-analysis, you'll find yourself building somebody else's dream at the expense of self-actualising your business flight path. It's a step-by-step process because you won't know how to, but you must pay yourself first, literally, figuratively, emotionally, and economically.
Granted, it's financially comfortable to stay in the 9-5, but it comes at the cost of equity. You don't own anything, not even your time. Your value equates to how much you acquiesce to your boss, not even how talented you are or how you think on an individual level. The opportunity cost of sticking to 9-5 safety at the expense of the entrepreneurial journey your heart wants (subjectively speaking, of course) is that you could be paid to be talented and make your visions real.
Deciding to leave my office job in the healthcare industry wasn't something I felt ready to do at first. I knew I would lose the familiarity and comfort of knowing the exact amount of money coming into my account at the end of the month and the planning I could do around it. I traded consistency for the possibility of not being paid in certain months, and when I was assured of pay, I was most definitely making less than what my old office job was paying.
Seeking ownership still felt like a worthwhile risk for me to take. I needed to get one step closer to realising my real potential enshrined in my passion for writing. I no longer felt challenged in my office role. I thought it far more critical to challenge myself to see if I had the guts to step out of my plateau and step into my vision for myself.
2. There are broad horizons for those with niche skills as working roles become increasingly specialised. Focus on what you're good at and over-deliver. Don't be a jack of all trades; that's how you stay in an office. Incorporate company culture, we often rely more on status and roles than our skillsets/values, which is a recipe for insecurity.
When you're not an expert in a particular field blessed with your unique foresight, employers are spared the hassle of dealing with you puffing up your chest, trying to demand what you are worth. You are being paid not to be too much of a trailblazer, competent and sufficiently controllable. You've got to leverage for higher stakes if you're going to give your precious time away!
I fulfilled all the required duties of my office role. I mastered the pleasantries on the phone, the technical skills necessary for the spreadsheets, and the ability to pretend to enjoy the orders sent to me by the top-ranking bosses when they'd walk into the building. By the time you've become so good at your job that you're not learning anything new, it's most likely time to leave. Don't be afraid to pitch for something that excites you!
3. Partner with companies where you can practise the skills you want to develop and gain experience. Use these opportunities at self-employment to prove yourself and be paid to do something that you love (hopefully, that is your skill, lol). It may not be your ideal entrepreneurial position, but it will be a step closer to your dreams.
I joined a social innovation partnership company based in London whilst balancing my 9-5 on the side. Realistically, balancing the two was hard to do. I would sneak into the small office rooms that were vacant to attend zoom calls at random times in the day or sometimes during a lunch break. I would try my best not to make it obvious to my colleagues; only the chosen few who were supportive of my switch were in the know. It was awkward to explain why I was disappearing from my desk for extended periods, but I digress.
Freelancing on zoom with the social innovation company allowed me to understand the work and build relationships that got me other roles further down the line. I finally got to do work that I felt more passionately about. Eventually, my partners branched out and created their own little brother start-up company. I refined my content writing and conducted ethical research in underserved communities. Though it wasn't exactly what I had in mind away from my office role, it still allowed me to take a step in the right direction in embarking on my writing journey.
4. Once you have a track record and build your confidence, you can focus on creating the concrete structures needed to make your enterprise more real. Legalities, business accounts, taxes, marketing are all components of your castle that will help it stand solid when the rain comes. Now you can consider applying your skills wherever the emerging trends in your industry are. Bear in mind that the increasing digitisation of the world in the 2020s is saturating old markets and demanding new working models that we haven't seen before. It would be good for you to be on the right side of history in the making!
I am now able to scope where creative writing in digital spaces will go to disseminate my creativity effectively. Writing a novel could take aeons that I don't have. I would rather be specific and technically savvy in sharing my message of inspiration through scripts and content that meets my audience where they are.
5. Hopefully, by this point, you should be self-employed with your enterprise (or partnership), working in a manner where you can capitalise on opportunities that arise because you have a network and an accurate read on the future of your industry. Most importantly, you have specialised skills, a feeling for futureproofing and a track record that can give you confidence when the rainy days come, money is slow, and things don't go as you'd want.
Nothing can beat you, provided you don't quit. You've already successfully made it out of the 9-5 mentality to pursue your heart's content. It's too late to turn back now! You are closer to your dreams than you started before… Think about it…
Where I am now, I am content writing under my enterprise en route to the big-time scriptwriting that I want to do. I'm closer than I was when I was doing office work, so that's progress—victory in my eyes.
It's not perfect by any means, but my glass is half-full!
My situation was heavily coloured by the pandemic, as the economy becomes more digitised and specialised, how do you think people will make their transitions away from a 9-5?
If you’ve been inspired by anything that I’ve written, let’s connect and explore new horizons together.
Tracey Kirungi, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tracey was born and raised in London, United Kingdom. She considers herself on all accounts, to be a proud "East London-East African" due to her East and Central African roots and intrinsic cultural aspirations. She has also created her own haircare line, Self Aware Black Hair Care, that specifically caters to black women and girls in her community. Tracey's expertise in freelance writing under TM Kitara is borne from transitioning from a 9-5 working style, to developing an entrepreneurial niche in the creator economy. Tracey places a therapeutic focus on the mental health and wellness of those making innovative, creative strides in an increasingly digitised economy.
At present, Tracey still resides in London. In addition to her TM Kitara enterprise, she works part-time as a freelance content writer for Centric's community research organisation, based in London.
