Many tend to believe that our regular jobs and careers are at diametrical opposites from our existing or potential businesses. As a matter-of-fact, many, if not most, will draw a strict line between their 9-to-5 and their side hustles or businesses, as if the first had nothing to do with the latter.
Don’t get me wrong, there are instances when you must keep your day job and business, if you happen to have both, separate. Some companies are not keen on having their employees grow side hustles that may be in conflict with their main job responsibilities. Others just fear that their employees will not be as committed to their day jobs if they have a business on the side.
However, your job is not as diametrically as opposed to your potential business as you may think. Actually, your current job may in fact help you start and grow your next business. That was the case for me, as the mission for The Corporate Sister was born out of my experience as a career woman and the needs for mentorship, guidance and resources that I experienced as a working woman.
If you’re wondering how you can use your job to start and grow your next business, here are 5 steps you can undertake:
Make an inventory of all the skills you’ve acquired at your job
Whether you like your job or absolutely dread going to work in the morning, the fact is you are acquiring invaluable skills on a daily basis. For some, it may be dealing with customers, or managing a team. For others, it may be developing analytical skills or public speaking abilities. Whatever these may be, the added talents you’re gaining through your job on a daily basis are opening unlimited opportunities for you.
Take some time to periodically sit down and make a list of all these skills. This will require you to analyze your job activities so you can really understand what and how much you’re learning, even if on the go. This regular practice will also allow you to update your resume on a regular basis, and present yourself in a more comprehensive way professionally.
Make an inventory of all your natural skills and talents
There are also those natural talents and abilities that you’ve always had. You may not even fully realize you have them, since they come to you so naturally. For some of you, it may be a writing skill or unique communication abilities. For others, it may be an ease with public speaking or an unusual acumen for numbers.
In this case as well, you may want to take some time to analyze your natural talents and abilities. Think of what people come to you most often for. What are you most known for? What do you do with such a natural ease and pleasure that you don’t even have to think about it? Most often, this is also what you wouldn’t even mind doing if you weren’t paid for it? Another good indicator consists in your hobbies and those pleasure activities you excel at.
Write them down as completely and in detail as you can. If need be, you may take a few days to complete your list. Don’t hesitate to probe people around you, from your management team and co-workers, to your family and friends as well.
Assess the market for any needs that your skills can fill
The next step is less introspective, as it will require you to take a look outside of yourself into the market that surrounds you. What do you think people around you need the most? What would you like to see implemented and acted upon around you? Remember that many businesses start out of a personal need first.
Make a list of the market needs you’re identifying around you and connect these with your skills and talents, whether acquired through your job or naturally.
Proceed by elimination
As you go over the various lists you’ve now created, start picking and choosing between the opportunities that are most attractive to you. You may undergo a process of elimination involving your highest priorities, as well as your likes, dislikes and general preferences.
As you go through this process, remember to keep in touch with your own internal compass. What stirs your soul the most? What appeals to your intuition? What would bring you the most joy and fulfillment?
Rinse and repeat
This is not a once-and-done type of process. It may actually require many iterations over time to come up with the right business or side hustle for you. Don’t hesitate to rinse and repeat as much as you deem necessary.
A great side-effect of this is that you’ll tend to stay in touch with your growth and experience, which in turn will help you update your resume and elevator pitch more often and accurately.
For more on this, check out The Corporate Sister on Youtube:
How can you use your current job to start and grow your next business?
Welcome to Episode 15 of the TCS Podcast: How to Survive the Summer Slump as a Working Woman
In this episode of The Corporate Sister podcast, I’m discussing how we, as working women and moms, can survive the summer slump, while still taking the time to recharge our batteries and be as productive as we can. Listen in!
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this week’s episode! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please share it by using the social media at the bottom of this post!
Also, leave me a review for the TCS podcast oniTunes!
There is no doubt that becoming a mom is a life-altering event. Your entire existence, from your schedule to your life plans, not to mention your surroundings, changes in the most drastic way. Nothing is ever the same again, in a good way. Not even your career…
I didn’t realize how much my independent life of an ambitious career woman would be thrown upside down before my babies came to the world. As much as I made sure to have the main logistical components covered, from the paint on the nursery to the babywear colors, there was still (and still is) a huge component that was left to chance, although I didn’t quite know it yet. As I sat in the doctor’s office a few weeks before each of my babies made their world entrance, I had specific plans laid out. How I was planning on giving birth, what I would do during my maternity leave, when I would return to work, my schedule after baby, etc….
Needless to say, nothing happened as planned, from emergency surgeries to being late for every doctor’s appointment thereafter. I still smile thinking about how little went according to plan, and how pretty much everything else just happened.
Yet what I wasn’t expecting as much was how motherhood was going to change my career in some of the deepest ways imaginable. It wasn’t until I left my first baby with the babysitter the first time around to head back to work after my maternity leave that the reality of this change started dawning on me. Months and years later, as I re-visited my perspective on work and what it meant to me, I could really grasp how much becoming a working mom had altered what work meant for me, mostly in these seven ways:
I started asking myself about the purpose of my work
After becoming a mom, and contemplating the smallness of pretty much everything around as compared to the miracle of carrying and nurturing life, I started thinking about Purpose more and more. One morning, Dear Daughter asked me: “Mommy, why do you go to work?” I stopped in my (already late) tracks, foundation brush in hand, wet wipe in the other, contemplating if I should answer and lose my job due to excessive lateness.
After this morning interlude, one question that kept popping in the back of my mind was: “Why do we get up every single day to do what we do?” Yes, bills have to get paid, and one must work in life. Yet, there has to be more to life and work than simply checking the career box and making money. As we raise children who look at what we do more than they listen to what we say, how important is it to us that what we do inspires them in a good way when we’re not even sure why we do it?
For months afterwards, my answer was something along the lines of “To take care of you and the house.” Yet her reply was always: “But why?” It prompted me to think about why I was doing what I was doing, besides paying the bills. Which is how this small question also prompted me, without me even knowing, to change my career path to writing and teaching, because that is my purpose.
It became important to teach my children about the meaning of work
Work occupies such an important part of our lives. From an early age on, I saw my mother work hard as a single mom, in and outside of the home. It was important to me to follow her example and build a successful career as well.
Yet, after having children, as they asked about the work we did as parents, it became important to share this part of ourselves with them. Growing up in conservative Senegal, West Africa, my parents never really told us much about work. It was just something you were supposed to do, along with taking daily showers and cleaning up after yourself. I didn’t really understand it, or questioned it, until I started working myself and the unanswered questions turned into personal and professional dilemmas.
As a parent, I make it a point to open the lines of communication with my children as a way to bond and share more with them. When it came to the question of work and career, interestingly enough, I didn’t know what to tell them. This is where I started re-evaluating my own understanding of my career and what it really meant for me. Only by understanding it better myself, could I share this meaning with them. It also forced me to make changes to the way I viewed my work, and the direction of my career path.
Being fulfilled became more important than making money
Growing up in a single-parent family, it’s always been important for me to have financial security. While my mom was a hard worker and we never lacked of anything, I understood earlier on that the line between having and not having can be really thin. I made it a priority to always be financially secure as a woman, which directed me towards a career in finance and accounting. Making money and achieving financial freedom as I started my career was more important than getting married or even starting a family.
Fast-forward a few years, and motherhood managed to turn my priorities upside down. While financial security is still important to me, fulfillment takes a front seat. It became obvious that lack of fulfillment in my work would negatively impact me as an individual and a mom. That’s when being fulfilled and joyful in my work beat any amount of zeros on that bi-weekly paycheck…
I had permission to chase my dreams
As I speak to many moms around me, it seemed as if motherhood is the signal to stop living for ourselves. Somehow, after becoming moms, it seems we ought to give up on our individuality and stop chasing our dreams to dedicate ourselves entirely to the task of raising our children. I was tempted to buy into it as well….
Until I remembered that you cannot give what you don’t have. How could I as a mom, give my kids the hope, joy, ambition and anticipation of going after their dreams if I abdicated mine? How would I explain to them someday that I didn’t live the life I wanted to because of them? Way to make them feel falsely indebted as opposed to joyfully equipped….
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until I had children that I gave myself full permission to chase my dreams. Not just because I owed it to myself (because we do), but also because I owe it to them to at least try…
The goal is more freedom
The first time I dropped off my baby at the babysitter’s to head to work post-maternity leave, one word popped into my mind: “Freedom”. In that case, the lack thereof. Like so many moms out there, I didn’t exactly have a choice. While many of us can now negotiate phased-in returns from maternity leaves and even work for home longer, most of us are not in a position to choose.
That’s when the pursuit of time and space freedom became a priority for me. Flexibility was now so much more important, and had to become a major part of any career I would be in. The goal became to create more freedom in my work, not just money or advancement.
Being the best version of myself became crucial
I’ve secretly already planned Dear Daughter and Dear Son’s wedding, locale, outfits and all. Ok, I may be over-exaggerating, or maybe not. The point is, becoming a mother also made me gasp at the thought of missing my babies’ milestones. For someone who only got gym memberships because the exercise outfits were cute, and would rather go for a root canal than doing a set of abs, becoming the healthiest and most present version of myself was scary at first.
Even more than exercising and breaking up with bread and cheese, it also meant doing my best and most fulfilling work. Which also translated into letting go of so much professional stress, re-directing my work in a way that allowed me to be present, healthy, grateful and, ultimately, happy!
Leaving a legacy is key
One of my favorite Bible verses is Proverbs 13:22 “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” As moms, and parents in general, most of us work to leave a legacy to our families, whether in monetary form, examples or memories.
Considering how much work occupies our existences, it forces us to think about the legacy we’re leaving our kids when it comes to our careers. What are we teaching them about work? What are not teaching them that we should? How are we impacting the important work they will be doing? It certainly pushed me to consider what I was leaving my babies to ponder upon when it came to work and careers, of which the most important: “To do work with purpose on purpose, and lead by serving.”
Welcome to our career, entrepreneurship, lifestyle and fashion weekly news roundup! Think of it as your online watercooler/work gossip station/coffee break spot for now…Want to add anything to our list? Email us at corporate@thecorporatesister.com!
Summer is perfect for summer reads! Business Insider shares 17 books Barack Obama thinks everyone should read this summer;
Are you a job seeker with disabilities? Glassdoor explains how job seekers with disabilities can improve their job prospects;
As busy working women, it can be a challenge to find the time and energy to shop for the right products for us. Taking a trip to the store when you’re struggling with your to-do list or getting the kids from school can be nearly impossible at all times. Hence, monthly subscription boxes to ease the shopping process.
The principle is simple. You basically pay a monthly fee, which allows you to sample products without having to commit to the full price at retail. You also don’t have to leave the privacy of your home to get the best items fitted to your lifestyle, at your convenience. While there’s always the risk that you may order something that doesn’t fit you, or looks different than advertised, the overall positives outweigh the cons.
After marriage, kids and career, my days of leisurely shopping and comparing prices as I strolled through malls and boutiques were definitely over. I frankly had no desire to drag my babies to stores filled with people. Neither did I want to spend extra time looking for what I needed. That’s how I fell in love with subscription boxes. Plus the fact that you kinda get a surprise every single month in your mailbox…
Here are my 10 favorite subscription boxes for working women:
If you’re a female entrepreneur, or have a side hustle, the Sparkle, Hustle & Growmonthly box is for you! Every month, you get four to six items, including fun and chic accessories, desk supplies, as well as books to help you be more productive at work. You also get access to powerful online resources along with being automatically added to their Facebook group.
I admit, I’m shoe-obsessed! While parenting and the need for more conscious budgeting has slowed my shoe habit down over time, I’m still very much into beautiful yet practical footwork. ShoeDazzlehas been my go-to for shoes for quite a while now. The principle is simple. For a monthly membership fee of $39.99, you get to pick a pair of your favorite footwear among the selection offered every 30 days. Pretty convenient and a nice treat for shoe-lovers like myself!
The website also offers a selection of apparel, accessories and bags to choose from as well. As a monthly subscriber or VIP member, you also save on the prices of items you choose to purchase.
JustFab is similar to ShoeDazzle, as it works on a monthly membership basis as well. In the same way, you get your own personalized shopping boutique along with VIP credits to allow you to purchase the items of your choice.
Similarly, it offers apparel, accessories and bags. One additional common feature is your ability to “skip the month”, or elect not to pay the monthly fee and purchase a new item during the month of your choice.
Fableticsis the athletic alter ego to Just Fab created by Kate Hudson. It works on the same monthly membership system. However, this is all about athletic wear for women and offers plus-size options as well.
Adore Me offers affordable quality lingerie on a monthly membership basis as well. The principle is also pretty simple. You take a quiz to assess your lingerie needs, and get matched with various options personalized for you.
As a member, you get to pick a lingerie set of your choice every month. Your 6thmonth is at no cost to you, and exchanges as well as shipping are also free.
Calling all curly girls! Founded by entrepreneur and thought leader Myleik Teele, Curlbox’s goal is to help curly girls find the best products for their naural hair, one monthly box at a time. For $20 a month, curly girls get to try various products from established brands. All you have to do is get on the list.
If you’re into crafts and are a Pinterest addict, then Home Made Luxeis right up your alley. This monthly craft subscription box delivers your favorite Pinterest-worthy craft projects right to your doorstep. You’ll get all the supplies you need to create outstanding home décor projects, plus a small bonus craft for you to enjoy.
If you’ve ever searched for the right mascara or night cream for weeks on end, then you know that finding the right beauty product can be a challenge. EnterBirchbox! For $10 a month, you get your own personalized mix of skincare, fragrance, hair and makeup samples delivered right to you.
If you love to spend your money towards good causes, you will love CauseBox! This monthly subscription box is filled with seasonal items produced by companies to empower women, be socially conscious, and create jobs. It’s a great way to get nice products, but also give back!
For the woman who loves to smell good, this monthly subscription box offers 30 days worth of brand names perfumes. For $14.95 a month, you can pick a new scent every single month through Scentbird.
Take the work out of your workwear!MMLafleursends you a professional wardrobe that will not only fit you to a T, but also fits your style. However, this is not a subscription service. You can simply order your style Bento box whenever you’d like.
What are your favorite monthly subscription boxes for women?
