How I Quit My Job To Start My On-line Business

I am so, so lucky (but perhaps sometimes I take it for granted!).

Why am I so lucky?

I work from home. I have done for the past 2.5 years and it’s FAB!

I love it. I work when I want (well most of the time) and I have the freedom to do want I want (to a certain degree).

Of course, it’s not always a bed of roses…I do work hard but it is the freedom, the lifestyle I love. The fact that I can take a break WHEN I WANT TO IS PRICELESS.

Honestly, if someone had told me a few years ago that I would be sitting here in my home office on a sunny afternoon, running my own on-line business, I would have laughed in their face. And then probably stayed away from them, because they would have been clearly insane. And yet, here I am, working from home running my own on-line business, which over the years has become viable and lucrative.

But it has taken a long time to get to this stage and over the next few blog posts…I’m going to share with you exactly how I gave up the 9-5 (or was it more like the 8-8!) and now work from home.

Just a little about my corporate career:

I left colleague (well I gave up) when I was 19 and went straight to work…in the City of London. Close to the Bank of England. I worked for an Insurance company. I quickly moved departments and was lucky enough to join the IT department.

Many years later, after a few company moves I ended up being a senior IT manager of one of the largest UK Insurance companies.

With the job came an awesome salary, pension, health-care, company car and wonderful yearly bonuses.

In summary, I was rewarded well and I loved my job. I worked hard. I loved the hustle and bustle of an energized working environment. My job, my career was extremely important to me…and the income (of course!).

Why am I telling you all this?

I want you to know that I was working hard and in return was very well paid in a fairly secure role. There had been many mergers and acquisitions along the way and I had survived numerous staff cutbacks.

That was the worst part of the job…telling some of your work colleagues they were out of a job…no longer required. Very tough!

I knew my name could easily be on the next list of personnel no longer needed.

I needed a plan b.

I needed my own backup in case I was made redundant.

That was the easy decision…the fact I needed a plan b.

But what? What was my plan b going to be?

For 30 years, I had worked in the corporate world. That’s all I knew. I suppose I was experienced and could get another job but that wasn’t really a plan b. Get another job if made redundant is not a plan b

Well not the sort of plan b I wanted.

I wanted to be in control.

Over a beer one evening, I was discussing this situation with a good friend.

He said, “Have you thought about selling stuff on-line?”

“What like e-bay? Tried that. It’s not really my thing.”

“No…I mean sell your passions, knowledge, experience. Many people are doing it and making a fortune”

(Please note this was about 6 years ago).

“Really?”

“Yeah…you should investigate”

I finished my drink and thought I will investigate…I have nothing to lose.

Next day, I did some on-line investigation and I was shocked and excited at the same time.

I was reading so many product sales pages telling me I could earn a fortune by selling my knowledge on-line…within weeks.

Shocked that this sort of thing existed and excited because I thought I could do this.

But I knew very little about the internet. I didn’t know how to register a domain or build a website or know where to start.

But I was keen…I was eager to start and was happy to invest.

I needed an internet mentor!

In the next post in this series I’ll tell you how I found my internet mentor and what we did next.