65. When Do You Become a “Real” Business Owner?
The mental gymnastics we put ourselves through when starting a business can be exhausting. One mom entrepreneur I worked with recently was terrified her business might not "pan out." She couldn't even define what success would look like. She just knew she wanted to have the foundations of a business ready. But then she asked me something that stopped me in my tracks: "How will I know when I've actually started a business?”
Most of us believe there's some magical moment when we transition from wannabe entrepreneur to real business owner. Maybe it's filing the LLC paperwork, signing that first client, or hitting a certain revenue milestone. The truth is, there's no official starting line. Your brain will keep moving the goalposts to keep you safe in your current identity, and this pattern can continue indefinitely, keeping you small and preventing you from stepping into your power as a business owner.
Tune in this week to learn why you need to decide you’re a real business owner before you feel ready. You’ll hear what happens the moment you decide to tell another person about your business vision, and how everything changes once you lean into your identity as a real business owner.
Ready to start your networking journey? Join us every 2nd Thursday for my free Mom Entrepreneurs Circle. Sign up below for support, advice sharing, and the tools you need for both you and your business to thrive.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why there's no official moment when you become a "real" business owner.
How your brain uses moving goalposts to keep you stuck in your current identity.
The power of declaring yourself a business owner before you feel ready.
Why stepping into an entrepreneurial identity drives the actions that create results.
How to write rules for your business journey that create wins instead of obstacles.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
When you see yourself as someone who has a business, you start making decisions that someone with a business would make. I know it sounds simple, and I know it sounds impossible, but I promise just try it on. Try to start thinking about yourself and seeing yourself as an entrepreneur, and just see how you show up differently.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Today, we're going to talk about something that might, or I hope, completely shift how you think about beginning your entrepreneurial journey. We're diving into when you know you've started a business.
I was in a strategy session the other day, and this is a free one-hour consultation that I do with moms who are considering starting a business. And we talk about all their goals, sometimes goals they've never shared with anyone, and I support them to start taking action. And sometimes that includes hiring me more consistently to help them, and sometimes it means just encouraging them to join one of my free mom entrepreneurs groups or helping them remove blocks so that they can do something, anything, in the business.
So I was talking to a mom in that strategy session, and her biggest mental block about starting a business was thinking that it might not pan out. Ultimately, what she's talking about is failure. What if I invest time and money in this business and it's a failure? What if it doesn't pan out? And that's an absolutely fair question, and it's worth exploring, right? What if it doesn't pan out? What if it's not successful? What will I gain by trying? Is it worth trying so that I can see what I'm capable of, even if it doesn't pan out the way I thought it would? Great questions.
But that's not what this episode is about, even though that's a good topic for another one. The next question that I asked her out of pure curiosity was, what does it mean for it to pan out? And I was really curious about it because I didn't know whether this person wanted to have a certain amount of revenue. I didn't know whether they wanted to have a certain amount of impact, right? I didn't know what success looked like for her. And in any strategy session, it's really hard to talk about a plan to get closer to that result if we don't know what panning out means. Because it's different for everyone.
So I asked her, what does that mean? How will you know at the end of 6 months if this has panned out? And she honestly didn't know the answer to that question, but she said, "Well, I just want to have a business. It doesn't even have to be wildly successful. I just want to be able to create the foundations of a business so that when my kids are a little older and I have more time to work on it, the foundations will be set."
And I loved that answer. It felt clear. But then she asked, how will I know when I've actually started a business? And I thought this was such a fabulous question because when is that moment that you actually become a business owner? Is it when you create the LLC? Is it when you have your first client? Is it when you hit a certain amount of revenue? Or is it when you feel like your idea is fully baked and you start telling people? It's such a good question.
And I want to answer this question in today's episode because the ambiguity around this question is actually working in our favor, not against it. And there are so many ways that I see new entrepreneurs use this against themselves. And I don't want you to fall into that trap. If you've been waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect client, or the perfect feeling of readiness to declare yourself a business owner who has a business, this episode is going to empower you to see yourself differently, as the business owner you are.
Let me paint a bit of a picture for you of what normally happens when a mom, myself included, starts a business. We have this business idea that's been growing in our hearts and minds for months, maybe even years if you're like me. We finally work up the courage to file for an LLC. And let me just say, that paperwork feels like climbing Mount Everest. We delay it because we've got to think of the perfect business name, right? We're stressing over whether we should pay for LegalZoom to get it done. We aren't sure whether we should file for an LLC or a sole proprietorship and what's the difference. We're stressing over whether we need a lawyer. But somehow, we get it done.
We get that congratulations email with the tax ID number, and for about 5 minutes, we feel like we're officially a business owner. We feel like we've officially started a business. But then Monday rolls around, and suddenly our brain starts its familiar chatter. It says, "Okay, but you don't have any clients yet. You don't even have a website. Do you really have a business if nobody knows about it? This doesn't count until you sign a client."
So then you get your first client, but they're a friend, and it seems like they're just doing it as a favor. So that doesn't count either. And then you get a paying client, but it's just one person, so surely that's not a real business. You haven't even made enough money to cover the networking event you went to last week. And then you have multiple clients, but you're not making enough to quit your day job. So clearly, you're still not there yet.
We've been conditioned to believe there's some magical moment when we transition from want-to-be entrepreneur to real business owner. We think it's when we get the LLC or land our first client or make our first dollar. But what nobody tells us is that there is no official starting line. If you've been in a traditional role for many years, that's what's comfortable for you. And just because you have an LLC or a client or two, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden you will see yourself as a business owner or see yourself as having a business. Your brain is literally designed to keep you safe, which means it wants you to stay exactly where you are as an employee or a stay-at-home mom or wherever you are in this chapter of life.
Starting a business, becoming an entrepreneur, that's scary territory. It's unfamiliar. So your brain keeps moving those goalposts in hopes to deter you from stepping into this new identity. But here's what I want you to understand in this episode, is that you get to decide when you're a business owner. You get to decide when you have a business. Regardless of what your brain is telling you, and there is no right answer, but declaring it sooner will serve you and empower you in the long run. Waiting until you reach a certain milestone will work against you because those milestones become moving goalposts.
I've said this before, but entrepreneurship is really an act of personal development. Okay? It's not about the business as much as it is about you. And I say the same thing about parenting. We think parenting is about the kids, but it is 100% about us. And what I want to offer is that there's magic in stepping into a new identity before you feel truly ready. I tell my clients if you're uncomfortable, if you feel like you need to throw up, you're doing something right, or you're pregnant.
But I want you to think about it this way. If you wait until you feel like a business owner, if you wait until you have a “real” business, you might be waiting forever. But if you decide right now that you are somebody who has a business, even if it's just an idea, something magical happens. You start showing up differently. When you introduce yourself as a business owner, even before you have clients, even before you're making money, you step into that identity. And when you step into that identity, you start making decisions from that place. You start asking yourself, what would a business owner do in this situation, right? Instead of constantly saying to yourself, "I don't know how."
Maybe you would start taking yourself seriously, which might mean asking family to come over one Saturday morning so that you can work on the business and they can help out with the kids, right? While you go to a coffee shop. Or maybe even asking a friend to take your toddler for a play date. You would start investing in yourself, not just time and energy, but money. Okay, maybe you pay to attend a conference in your industry or join an organization that supports women in business, like NABO, the National Association of Women in Business, which I'll link into the show notes.
And this isn't about fake it till you make it. This is about understanding that your identity drives your actions, and your actions create your results. So when you decide you're a business owner, you start networking differently. You start thinking about problems differently. You start seeing opportunities everywhere because you're looking through the lens of someone who solves problems.
And what I also want to offer is you start making decisions that lead to having a business. You make decisions to start the LLC. You make decisions to go to the events and make offers when you're talking to people, to say, "I have this business, I offer these services," to offer to help people. Whatever your business is, you start seeing clients and finding clients in different spaces and places. So you see yourself as a business owner, and that is what allows you to take action and create the result of having a business.
What if you decided that you have a business the moment you decide to tell one other person that you're going for it? Not when you get the LLC, not when you make your first sale, but when you find the courage to say, "I'm starting a business" or, "I have a business," out loud to another human being. And why that moment? Because it requires no external validation. You don't have to wait for paperwork or congratulations emails. You don't even need for that person to be listening or to give positive feedback, because honestly, in this day and age, it's hard to keep people's attention anyway. But the act of you sharing your vision with someone else takes courage, and the moment you do that, you're not just someone with an idea anymore, right? You're someone who's taking action on that idea.
I remember the first time I told someone I seriously wanted to start a coaching business. I hadn't even really talked seriously about it to my husband. I met with an old co-worker who was now a career coach. And in the consultation, she asked about what I wanted to do in my next chapter for work. And also, just a side note, since I mentioned the strategy session, the consultation before, this is why even that free 1-hour conversation with somebody can be such a breakthrough. It can be so motivating and it can get your butt in gear, just like I had this experience with my coach. But she asked what I wanted to do in my next chapter for work. And I remember I almost didn't tell her. I was so scared. I thought it was so silly. But I said, you know, I've thought about maybe starting my own coaching business.
And it was like, there is my life before I said that out loud and my life after I said that. There was such freedom in saying it, and thankfully I was saying it to someone who was now going to hold me accountable to making that dream come true. But I'll be honest, I wish my younger self could have listened to this podcast episode because thankfully, I had someone supporting me and telling me I was a business owner before I felt like it. But even with that, it still took me many years, many clients, and a lot of revenue before I started taking myself seriously and seeing myself as a business owner.
My goalposts looked like this, and it's even silly to say now. I told myself initially the business will be official when I have the LLC. And then it'll be official when I leave my corporate job. Then it'll be official when I sign my first client. And then, no, it'll be official when I've signed my first paying client because I donated free coaching to a women's shelter for a while, so it was free clients for the first few months. And then it's not official until, this is where my brain gets extra creative, it's not official until I can pay for health insurance for the family. And then it was not official until I could pay the mortgage.
It's almost laughable thinking back to what my brain did for so many years to keep me small, to keep me seeing myself as not a business owner, to keep seeing my business as not legitimate. So we're not going to do that with your business. If I had decided to be an entrepreneur and to step into that identity when I first declared it, in that exact moment that I told my coach that I wanted to truly start a business, I would have started taking myself seriously and saved a ton of time, energy, and money because I would have made decisions and taken action from that identity.
Now, do we know how to be an entrepreneur at that moment? No, not really. And honestly, even entrepreneurs who've been at it for decades probably still feel like they are figuring it out day by day. I'm not saying that this won't be uncomfortable or that all of your problems will be solved when you decide you're a business owner. What I'm saying is that this is just one of many mindset blocks that will come up in some way, shape, or form at the beginning of any entrepreneur's journey, and there are ways to navigate it that are more optimal than others. Okay, ways that are more empowering versus disempowering.
So when you say you're a business owner, you put your chest out and you stand tall, right? When you've made progress in your business but you still say it's not legitimate or you're not really an entrepreneur, you stay small. Okay? And here's what I love most about this concept. You get to decide what having a business means to you. You get to write the rules of your own game. And I would encourage you to create rules that have you winning more. Your brain's going to want to write rules that work against you. It always does this, and it's quite exhausting. So just decide to make the rules work in your favor so that you experience more wins along the way and feel better about this entire process.
The beauty of making your own rules is that you can make them achievable while still being meaningful. Okay, you're not lowering your standards. You're truly creating a foundation of success that you can build on. And here's the thing about momentum. It builds on itself. When you feel successful at small things, you start showing up bigger for the bigger things. When you see yourself as someone who has a business, you start making decisions that someone with a business would make. I know it sounds simple, and I know it sounds impossible, but I promise just try it on. Try to start thinking about yourself and seeing yourself as an entrepreneur, and just see how you show up differently.
Now, I know what some of you are also thinking. But what if people think I'm not legitimate? What if they ask about my business and I don't have much to show for it? What if I'm talking to a potential client and they ask how many people I've worked with? I want to ask you this. What if they're inspired by your courage? What if your vulnerability about being in the early stages actually makes you more relatable and trustworthy for them to work with? What if your willingness to step into this identity before you feel ready is exactly what someone needs to see to give themselves permission to do the same?
When you declare yourself a business owner, whether it's at a dinner party, a networking event, or even just to your family, you're not lying or being inauthentic. You're stepping into the person you're becoming. You're practicing being her before she feels completely natural. And every time you practice this, every time you practice this version of yourself, she becomes more real. Every time you answer the question, what do you do with confidence about your business and yourself as a business owner, you're cementing that identity, even if it doesn't feel super comfortable and natural.
Every time you make a decision from the place of being a business owner rather than someone who's just thinking about it, you're creating evidence for your brain that this is now who you are. And this is how transformation happens, okay? Not through waiting until you feel ready, not until you're waiting until that perfect moment, but through deciding who you want to be and then acting from that place until it becomes your natural way of being.
If you saw yourself as someone who had a business right now, how would you show up differently? Would you be more willing to ask your family for support with childcare so that you could work on the business? Would you feel more confident sharing your ideas with friends? Would you start making decisions about your time and energy from the perspective of somebody who's building something important?
Here's what I want you to take away from today's episode. First, there's no official moment when you become a business owner or when your business is real. The ambiguity around this isn't a problem to solve. It's freedom to define success on your own terms. You get to decide when you've started, and that decision is completely valid, regardless of what anyone else thinks. You may think that when you start the LLC, that will make you a business owner. But trust me, your brain will find all the evidence as to why you're still not a business owner. So you get to decide. All right?
Second, like I said, your brain's going to try to move the goalpost to keep you safe in your current identity. I want you to recognize this pattern and write rules that serve you instead of rules that keep you stuck in analysis paralysis.
Third, stepping into the identity of a business owner before you feel completely ready is not only okay, it's a must. It's essential. Your identity drives your actions, and your actions create your results. If you haven't started a business yet, if you haven't taken action, it's probably because you're operating from your current identity, the identity that is somebody who doesn't see themselves as a business owner. I want you to start being who you want to become and watch how quickly she becomes who you actually are.
And finally, the moment you start telling people about your business, the moment you find the courage to own your vision out loud, that can be the moment you officially have a business. No paperwork required. No external validation needed. Just your courage and your commitment to the woman you're becoming.
So here's what I want you to do this week. I want you to step into your confidence as a business owner, even if you don't have the LLC, even if you don't have the first client. Start taking yourself seriously and test out making decisions from that identity. Notice how you show up differently. Or if more mental blocks pop up, and if you realize that it feels almost impossible to see yourself differently, I want you to know nothing has gone wrong. You just have more work to do. Starting a business isn't just about the LLC or creating revenue. It's about who we become in the process, and that work is much less daunting to do with a guide. I promise.
That's what I do every session with my clients. I help them to see the parts of them they are missing, the parts of them that make them a business owner already. And we figure out how they can make decisions and take action from that place. If that sounds like something that would benefit you, at the very least, please subscribe to this podcast because listening to these episodes will help you to step into that entrepreneur identity.
And if you want more hands-on support, you can join my free Mom Entrepreneur Circle. We're adding a new session that happens monthly, which is strictly business strategy focused, no matter where you're at in your business, even if you're just in the idea phase, maybe even just in the identity phase that we talked about today. That's going to be linked in the show notes if you go to Jenna.Coach/65.
And of course, if you want to step into that entrepreneur identity like yesterday, if you're like, I need this, email me, Jenna@Jenna.Coach, or schedule a strategy session. Okay? Either way, support is there for you if and when you want it. Let's figure this out so you can create something of your own. So you can start seeing yourself differently and really start making the impact you know you can make in the world. Okay? Keep showing up. Keep learning. Keep believing in the vision that's calling to your heart. And if you don't quite believe it, let me believe it for you. Because I believe in you so much. The world needs what you have to offer, and it's time you started believing that too. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Today, we're going to talk about something that might, or I hope, completely shift how you think about beginning your entrepreneurial journey. We're diving into when you know you've started a business.
I was in a strategy session the other day, and this is a free one-hour consultation that I do with moms who are considering starting a business. And we talk about all their goals, sometimes goals they've never shared with anyone, and I support them to start taking action. And sometimes that includes hiring me more consistently to help them, and sometimes it means just encouraging them to join one of my free mom entrepreneurs groups or helping them remove blocks so that they can do something, anything, in the business.
So I was talking to a mom in that strategy session, and her biggest mental block about starting a business was thinking that it might not pan out. Ultimately, what she's talking about is failure. What if I invest time and money in this business and it's a failure? What if it doesn't pan out? And that's an absolutely fair question, and it's worth exploring, right? What if it doesn't pan out? What if it's not successful? What will I gain by trying? Is it worth trying so that I can see what I'm capable of, even if it doesn't pan out the way I thought it would? Great questions.
But that's not what this episode is about, even though that's a good topic for another one. The next question that I asked her out of pure curiosity was, what does it mean for it to pan out? And I was really curious about it because I didn't know whether this person wanted to have a certain amount of revenue. I didn't know whether they wanted to have a certain amount of impact, right? I didn't know what success looked like for her. And in any strategy session, it's really hard to talk about a plan to get closer to that result if we don't know what panning out means. Because it's different for everyone.
So I asked her, what does that mean? How will you know at the end of 6 months if this has panned out? And she honestly didn't know the answer to that question, but she said, "Well, I just want to have a business. It doesn't even have to be wildly successful. I just want to be able to create the foundations of a business so that when my kids are a little older and I have more time to work on it, the foundations will be set."
And I loved that answer. It felt clear. But then she asked, how will I know when I've actually started a business? And I thought this was such a fabulous question because when is that moment that you actually become a business owner? Is it when you create the LLC? Is it when you have your first client? Is it when you hit a certain amount of revenue? Or is it when you feel like your idea is fully baked and you start telling people? It's such a good question.
And I want to answer this question in today's episode because the ambiguity around this question is actually working in our favor, not against it. And there are so many ways that I see new entrepreneurs use this against themselves. And I don't want you to fall into that trap. If you've been waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect client, or the perfect feeling of readiness to declare yourself a business owner who has a business, this episode is going to empower you to see yourself differently, as the business owner you are.
Let me paint a bit of a picture for you of what normally happens when a mom, myself included, starts a business. We have this business idea that's been growing in our hearts and minds for months, maybe even years if you're like me. We finally work up the courage to file for an LLC. And let me just say, that paperwork feels like climbing Mount Everest. We delay it because we've got to think of the perfect business name, right? We're stressing over whether we should pay for LegalZoom to get it done. We aren't sure whether we should file for an LLC or a sole proprietorship and what's the difference. We're stressing over whether we need a lawyer. But somehow, we get it done.
We get that congratulations email with the tax ID number, and for about 5 minutes, we feel like we're officially a business owner. We feel like we've officially started a business. But then Monday rolls around, and suddenly our brain starts its familiar chatter. It says, "Okay, but you don't have any clients yet. You don't even have a website. Do you really have a business if nobody knows about it? This doesn't count until you sign a client."
So then you get your first client, but they're a friend, and it seems like they're just doing it as a favor. So that doesn't count either. And then you get a paying client, but it's just one person, so surely that's not a real business. You haven't even made enough money to cover the networking event you went to last week. And then you have multiple clients, but you're not making enough to quit your day job. So clearly, you're still not there yet.
We've been conditioned to believe there's some magical moment when we transition from want-to-be entrepreneur to real business owner. We think it's when we get the LLC or land our first client or make our first dollar. But what nobody tells us is that there is no official starting line. If you've been in a traditional role for many years, that's what's comfortable for you. And just because you have an LLC or a client or two, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden you will see yourself as a business owner or see yourself as having a business. Your brain is literally designed to keep you safe, which means it wants you to stay exactly where you are as an employee or a stay-at-home mom or wherever you are in this chapter of life.
Starting a business, becoming an entrepreneur, that's scary territory. It's unfamiliar. So your brain keeps moving those goalposts in hopes to deter you from stepping into this new identity. But here's what I want you to understand in this episode, is that you get to decide when you're a business owner. You get to decide when you have a business. Regardless of what your brain is telling you, and there is no right answer, but declaring it sooner will serve you and empower you in the long run. Waiting until you reach a certain milestone will work against you because those milestones become moving goalposts.
I've said this before, but entrepreneurship is really an act of personal development. Okay? It's not about the business as much as it is about you. And I say the same thing about parenting. We think parenting is about the kids, but it is 100% about us. And what I want to offer is that there's magic in stepping into a new identity before you feel truly ready. I tell my clients if you're uncomfortable, if you feel like you need to throw up, you're doing something right, or you're pregnant.
But I want you to think about it this way. If you wait until you feel like a business owner, if you wait until you have a “real” business, you might be waiting forever. But if you decide right now that you are somebody who has a business, even if it's just an idea, something magical happens. You start showing up differently. When you introduce yourself as a business owner, even before you have clients, even before you're making money, you step into that identity. And when you step into that identity, you start making decisions from that place. You start asking yourself, what would a business owner do in this situation, right? Instead of constantly saying to yourself, "I don't know how."
Maybe you would start taking yourself seriously, which might mean asking family to come over one Saturday morning so that you can work on the business and they can help out with the kids, right? While you go to a coffee shop. Or maybe even asking a friend to take your toddler for a play date. You would start investing in yourself, not just time and energy, but money. Okay, maybe you pay to attend a conference in your industry or join an organization that supports women in business, like NABO, the National Association of Women in Business, which I'll link into the show notes.
And this isn't about fake it till you make it. This is about understanding that your identity drives your actions, and your actions create your results. So when you decide you're a business owner, you start networking differently. You start thinking about problems differently. You start seeing opportunities everywhere because you're looking through the lens of someone who solves problems.
And what I also want to offer is you start making decisions that lead to having a business. You make decisions to start the LLC. You make decisions to go to the events and make offers when you're talking to people, to say, "I have this business, I offer these services," to offer to help people. Whatever your business is, you start seeing clients and finding clients in different spaces and places. So you see yourself as a business owner, and that is what allows you to take action and create the result of having a business.
What if you decided that you have a business the moment you decide to tell one other person that you're going for it? Not when you get the LLC, not when you make your first sale, but when you find the courage to say, "I'm starting a business" or, "I have a business," out loud to another human being. And why that moment? Because it requires no external validation. You don't have to wait for paperwork or congratulations emails. You don't even need for that person to be listening or to give positive feedback, because honestly, in this day and age, it's hard to keep people's attention anyway. But the act of you sharing your vision with someone else takes courage, and the moment you do that, you're not just someone with an idea anymore, right? You're someone who's taking action on that idea.
I remember the first time I told someone I seriously wanted to start a coaching business. I hadn't even really talked seriously about it to my husband. I met with an old co-worker who was now a career coach. And in the consultation, she asked about what I wanted to do in my next chapter for work. And also, just a side note, since I mentioned the strategy session, the consultation before, this is why even that free 1-hour conversation with somebody can be such a breakthrough. It can be so motivating and it can get your butt in gear, just like I had this experience with my coach. But she asked what I wanted to do in my next chapter for work. And I remember I almost didn't tell her. I was so scared. I thought it was so silly. But I said, you know, I've thought about maybe starting my own coaching business.
And it was like, there is my life before I said that out loud and my life after I said that. There was such freedom in saying it, and thankfully I was saying it to someone who was now going to hold me accountable to making that dream come true. But I'll be honest, I wish my younger self could have listened to this podcast episode because thankfully, I had someone supporting me and telling me I was a business owner before I felt like it. But even with that, it still took me many years, many clients, and a lot of revenue before I started taking myself seriously and seeing myself as a business owner.
My goalposts looked like this, and it's even silly to say now. I told myself initially the business will be official when I have the LLC. And then it'll be official when I leave my corporate job. Then it'll be official when I sign my first client. And then, no, it'll be official when I've signed my first paying client because I donated free coaching to a women's shelter for a while, so it was free clients for the first few months. And then it's not official until, this is where my brain gets extra creative, it's not official until I can pay for health insurance for the family. And then it was not official until I could pay the mortgage.
It's almost laughable thinking back to what my brain did for so many years to keep me small, to keep me seeing myself as not a business owner, to keep seeing my business as not legitimate. So we're not going to do that with your business. If I had decided to be an entrepreneur and to step into that identity when I first declared it, in that exact moment that I told my coach that I wanted to truly start a business, I would have started taking myself seriously and saved a ton of time, energy, and money because I would have made decisions and taken action from that identity.
Now, do we know how to be an entrepreneur at that moment? No, not really. And honestly, even entrepreneurs who've been at it for decades probably still feel like they are figuring it out day by day. I'm not saying that this won't be uncomfortable or that all of your problems will be solved when you decide you're a business owner. What I'm saying is that this is just one of many mindset blocks that will come up in some way, shape, or form at the beginning of any entrepreneur's journey, and there are ways to navigate it that are more optimal than others. Okay, ways that are more empowering versus disempowering.
So when you say you're a business owner, you put your chest out and you stand tall, right? When you've made progress in your business but you still say it's not legitimate or you're not really an entrepreneur, you stay small. Okay? And here's what I love most about this concept. You get to decide what having a business means to you. You get to write the rules of your own game. And I would encourage you to create rules that have you winning more. Your brain's going to want to write rules that work against you. It always does this, and it's quite exhausting. So just decide to make the rules work in your favor so that you experience more wins along the way and feel better about this entire process.
The beauty of making your own rules is that you can make them achievable while still being meaningful. Okay, you're not lowering your standards. You're truly creating a foundation of success that you can build on. And here's the thing about momentum. It builds on itself. When you feel successful at small things, you start showing up bigger for the bigger things. When you see yourself as someone who has a business, you start making decisions that someone with a business would make. I know it sounds simple, and I know it sounds impossible, but I promise just try it on. Try to start thinking about yourself and seeing yourself as an entrepreneur, and just see how you show up differently.
Now, I know what some of you are also thinking. But what if people think I'm not legitimate? What if they ask about my business and I don't have much to show for it? What if I'm talking to a potential client and they ask how many people I've worked with? I want to ask you this. What if they're inspired by your courage? What if your vulnerability about being in the early stages actually makes you more relatable and trustworthy for them to work with? What if your willingness to step into this identity before you feel ready is exactly what someone needs to see to give themselves permission to do the same?
When you declare yourself a business owner, whether it's at a dinner party, a networking event, or even just to your family, you're not lying or being inauthentic. You're stepping into the person you're becoming. You're practicing being her before she feels completely natural. And every time you practice this, every time you practice this version of yourself, she becomes more real. Every time you answer the question, what do you do with confidence about your business and yourself as a business owner, you're cementing that identity, even if it doesn't feel super comfortable and natural.
Every time you make a decision from the place of being a business owner rather than someone who's just thinking about it, you're creating evidence for your brain that this is now who you are. And this is how transformation happens, okay? Not through waiting until you feel ready, not until you're waiting until that perfect moment, but through deciding who you want to be and then acting from that place until it becomes your natural way of being.
If you saw yourself as someone who had a business right now, how would you show up differently? Would you be more willing to ask your family for support with childcare so that you could work on the business? Would you feel more confident sharing your ideas with friends? Would you start making decisions about your time and energy from the perspective of somebody who's building something important?
Here's what I want you to take away from today's episode. First, there's no official moment when you become a business owner or when your business is real. The ambiguity around this isn't a problem to solve. It's freedom to define success on your own terms. You get to decide when you've started, and that decision is completely valid, regardless of what anyone else thinks. You may think that when you start the LLC, that will make you a business owner. But trust me, your brain will find all the evidence as to why you're still not a business owner. So you get to decide. All right?
Second, like I said, your brain's going to try to move the goalpost to keep you safe in your current identity. I want you to recognize this pattern and write rules that serve you instead of rules that keep you stuck in analysis paralysis.
Third, stepping into the identity of a business owner before you feel completely ready is not only okay, it's a must. It's essential. Your identity drives your actions, and your actions create your results. If you haven't started a business yet, if you haven't taken action, it's probably because you're operating from your current identity, the identity that is somebody who doesn't see themselves as a business owner. I want you to start being who you want to become and watch how quickly she becomes who you actually are.
And finally, the moment you start telling people about your business, the moment you find the courage to own your vision out loud, that can be the moment you officially have a business. No paperwork required. No external validation needed. Just your courage and your commitment to the woman you're becoming.
So here's what I want you to do this week. I want you to step into your confidence as a business owner, even if you don't have the LLC, even if you don't have the first client. Start taking yourself seriously and test out making decisions from that identity. Notice how you show up differently. Or if more mental blocks pop up, and if you realize that it feels almost impossible to see yourself differently, I want you to know nothing has gone wrong. You just have more work to do. Starting a business isn't just about the LLC or creating revenue. It's about who we become in the process, and that work is much less daunting to do with a guide. I promise.
That's what I do every session with my clients. I help them to see the parts of them they are missing, the parts of them that make them a business owner already. And we figure out how they can make decisions and take action from that place. If that sounds like something that would benefit you, at the very least, please subscribe to this podcast because listening to these episodes will help you to step into that entrepreneur identity.
And if you want more hands-on support, you can join my free Mom Entrepreneur Circle. We're adding a new session that happens monthly, which is strictly business strategy focused, no matter where you're at in your business, even if you're just in the idea phase, maybe even just in the identity phase that we talked about today. That's going to be linked in the show notes if you go to Jenna.Coach/65.
And of course, if you want to step into that entrepreneur identity like yesterday, if you're like, I need this, email me, Jenna@Jenna.Coach, or schedule a strategy session. Okay? Either way, support is there for you if and when you want it. Let's figure this out so you can create something of your own. So you can start seeing yourself differently and really start making the impact you know you can make in the world. Okay? Keep showing up. Keep learning. Keep believing in the vision that's calling to your heart. And if you don't quite believe it, let me believe it for you. Because I believe in you so much. The world needs what you have to offer, and it's time you started believing that too. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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