5 ways to retrain your brain to be your own boss

Here’s to the side hustler. The person making sure that bread is buttered on both sides. To the woman or the man successfully living in 2 realities, I salute you! You are amazing.  You are a unicorn.  You are freak in the corporate world.

No one else would understand just how difficult it is to live in two minds.  By day to live in the mind of a corporate employee and at night in the mind of boundless opportunity and promise of an entrepreneur.

How do you keep sane when you sit at work listening to people complaining about their boss, the way their salaries can’t keep up with everyday expenses, whilst full knowing that the same person will go home tonight and sit in front of the TV for 6 hours straight, not lifting a finger to better themselves?    

I was there, I was that person.  And I was happy.  Which is why I believe the transition for me was even more difficult than for most people.  21 years in an office, 21 years of being part of the culture and perpetuating it to all the bright eyed young employees joining the company.  Slowly indoctrinating and crushing dreams, just for them to one day wake up 40 years old and wondering what exactly happened.

Well no more.  It started slowly, building up in me, always wanting to find something on the side to make some extra monthly income, never knowing what to do.  But therein lays the problem. You have to start to stretch your mind into what is possible.   Once you start, you explore and one day you can’t stop thinking of hundreds of brilliant ideas to start the next big thing.  Right there the problem of focus is born and I had to learn to focus on one thing, persist and make it a success or I would have started a million, uncompleted brilliant ideas.

How do you then transition from being stuck in the rat race to making money for yourself?  It starts with a few small things, but the seeds grow fast and I can recommend starting with some of the following actions:

• Attend a mindset course. There are a gazillion of them out there.  They all sound flaky and like mumbo jumbo nonsense.  Try it anyway.  Start by listening to some YouTube videos on mindset, abundance and gratitude.  Once you are comfortable with your uncomfortableness, it is time to actually attend one.  And then attend another one until you get it.  I am still “getting it” every time I attend one.  Learning something new, focusing on a different aspect than before. 
• Read or listen to a book. There are some great classic books out there on taking action. Some of them made me angry, how dare they say that I am lazy! I have a full time job and I am a mother of 3 young kids! I kept listening and got over myself.  I tried some of the methods; I stopped a few but kept some of it and made it my own.  The only trick to this is that reading means nothing unless you take action and implement.
• Talk to people that has done this before. But where will I even find these people, you may ask.  There are everyday people out there all around you, doing something already, they just don’t talk about it, as the corporate culture labels them as “not focused” and “not working as hard as us”.  And if all else fails talk to the supermarket owner, or your doctor that runs their own practice, they are all business owners and can share some good advice with you.  Oh and then there is social media… but I never know who the real person is on the other side of the beautiful pictures and glossy ads so I rather go with referrals.
• Choose something.   Really it doesn’t matter.   Once you choose something and start, other opportunities will present itself and you will find the path that was meant for you.  I chose property as I thought it was a fairly easy concept to understand. It was and it wasn’t as easy as I thought.  Just know that you will find your way if you persist.
• Get a coach. I asked for a property coach but got a life coach instead.  I needed that more than a property coach.  But just by virtue of having someone keep me accountable to my plan helped, it was like I appointed my own boss, just for me!

If you really want this, I must also warn you that you will get labelled at work, you will get angry and frustrated with people complaining every day about the same thing but never changing anything.  Your loved ones might think you are crazy and you will never work this hard again. You will love it, you will feel like life has meaning again and that they sky really is the limit and not the glass ceiling.

So proceed with caution… you will never be the same again!