67. How to Start Your Business Without Certainty
Most of us have been trained to take comfort in certainty - the steady paycheck, the predictable schedule, the clear career path. When you've spent years building financial stability for your family and establishing your professional reputation, the idea of risking all of that feels terrifying.
Starting a business feels like stepping off a cliff blindfolded. You want guarantees that if you take this leap, it's going to work out. You want someone to hand you a foolproof roadmap. But while you're waiting for guarantees that will never come, time is passing. Your kids are growing up, your energy is being depleted by work that doesn't fulfill you, and that dream of creating something meaningful keeps getting pushed further into someday territory.
Tune in this week as I shift your entire perspective on certainty and show you why the best time to start your business is now - not when you feel certain, but precisely because you feel uncertain. You'll discover the real certainties that come with entrepreneurship and how to take action from courage instead of waiting for control.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why your brain's natural craving for certainty is actually keeping you stuck.
The real certainties you can count on when starting a business.
How taking action without guarantees builds the exact skills that make business success more likely.
What makes entrepreneurship valuable regardless of whether your business succeeds or fails.
Powerful questions to ask yourself that focus on growth instead of fear.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Today I want to shift your entire perspective on certainty and show you why the best time to start your business is now, not when you feel certain, but precisely because you feel uncertain.
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 I want to talk about uncertainty. I sent an email out about this topic a couple weeks ago and it really resonated with a lot of you and so I wanted to dive into the topic a little deeper. Because the truth is that we all want certainty in life, and aside from layoffs, really, our traditional roles have pretty much scratched that itch. They've provided a structure where we can, for the most part, be certain that we have a job. Though in episode 31, I talk about the reality that being randomly laid off does mean that traditional roles are also not entirely risk-free.
But for the most part, most days on the job, we are certain we have a job, certain we have clients or work to do. We're certain that money will show up in our account each month. We've also been trained to take comfort in that certainty. So when we talk about starting a business, our brain immediately goes to questioning whether it will work out.
There's this voice in our head asking all of those questions, the questions like, but what if this doesn't work out? What if I waste all this time and energy and have nothing to show for it? What if I fail and proved to everyone that I should have just stayed in my safe corporate job?
Right now, you might be feeling a pull towards something different, something that would give you more flexibility with your family, more autonomy over your time, and frankly, probably more excitement about your work. And the problem is, starting a business feels like stepping off a cliff blindfolded. Okay, you've built your career in a traditional role and entrepreneurship is anything but traditional. You want guarantees. You want to know with absolute certainty that if you take this leap, it's going to work out. You want someone to hand you a foolproof roadmap and say, "Follow these steps and you'll have a six-figure business in 12 months."
You want to know that you won't get burned out again, that you'll actually enjoy the work, and that all this effort will be worthwhile. And here's the thing, wanting certainty isn't wrong. It's actually completely natural and understandable. When you've worked so hard to build financial stability for your family, when you've invested years in building your reputation and career, the idea of risking all of that feels terrifying.
Your brain is literally wired to keep you safe and safe feels like staying exactly where you are, even if where you are is draining your mind, body, and soul. But what I've learned, both in my own journey and in working with so many moms, is that waiting for certainty is actually the most risky thing you can do. Because while you're waiting for guarantees that will never come, time is passing. Your kids are growing up, your energy is being depleted by work that doesn't fulfill you, and that dream of creating something meaningful, it keeps getting pushed further and further into someday territory.
Today I want to shift your entire perspective on certainty and show you why the best time to start your business is now, not when you feel certain, but precisely because you feel uncertain.
Let's dive in. I want to start by really understanding this deep craving for certainty. Because once we see it clearly, we can stop letting it run the show. Think about certainty for a moment. Truly being certain. And I want to ask, what does it feel like in your body when you imagine having complete certainty about your business? There's this sense of safety, right? This feeling of being in control of knowing exactly what's going to happen and when. It feels like you could finally take a deep breath and relax into the process.
When we imagine having certainty, we picture ourselves confidently taking action. Not second guessing our decisions, not worrying about wasting time or money. We imagine moving forward with this unwavering conviction that everything is going to work out exactly as planned. So no wonder we want it so badly. Who wouldn't want to feel that secure and confident?
But here's what's really happening when we demand certainty before we start. We're essentially asking to know the outcome of a journey we've never taken. Using skills we've never developed or utilized in a market or industry we've probably never navigated. It's like asking to know what childbirth is like before having a kid. No matter what, that first birth story is going to be full of uncertainty. No matter how many books you read, classes you take, and podcasts you listen to, there is going to be uncertainty in that process. You don't know what to expect. There are no guarantees.
And without those answers, without knowing for certain that our business will succeed, it feels completely reasonable to postpone taking any action. It feels completely reasonable to postpone getting started. We tell ourselves we'll get started once we feel more certain. Once we've done more research, once we've found the perfect business idea, once we've saved more money, once the kids are older, once, once, once.
But here's the truth that, of course might sting a little, that the certainty that we're all waiting for, it just doesn't exist. It never has and it never will.
So let's get really real about this for a moment. Of course, certainty doesn't exist when it comes to starting a business. And how could it? If you've never created a business before, how can you feel certain about the process or the outcome? It's literally impossible.
And here's something also a little bit mind-bending that I want you to think about. If you were already certain that your business idea would work, you would have already created it. What? Yeah. If there was certainty in this business decision, you wouldn't be spending time listening to a podcast about starting a business. You would have already just gone out there and created it. Because if you were certain, you would already know how to do it.
The fact that you're uncertain isn't necessarily a problem. There's uncertainty in everything in life. It's just evidence that you're considering something new and challenging, which is exactly where growth happens. And every successful business owner that you might admire or look up to, every person who's built something incredible from nothing, they started without certainty too. They didn't have a crystal ball. They didn't have guarantees. They had an idea, maybe some skills, and the courage to step into action even without guarantees that it would work.
Okay, we can't be certain that any one business idea will work, whatever that means to you, whether it be revenue or impact or some other metric that you measure success by. But what I've discovered in my years of doing this work with so many moms is that there are things we absolutely can be certain of when we decide to start a business. And these certainties, they're actually more valuable than the outcome-based certainty we think we want.
So stay with me here. We're going to talk about what you can be certain of and why this will change everything. Because this is where this conversation gets really exciting. Because I'm about to give you some guarantees, real actual certainties that you can count on when you decide to start your business.
Okay? We can be certain that once you start a business, you'll begin learning new tools and business skills. Okay? Whether your business succeeds wildly or fails spectacularly, you're still going to learn things about marketing, sales, customer service, project management, problem solving, all the things that you can't learn any other way. That doesn't mean you're going to be great at all those things. That doesn't mean you're going to stick around long enough to master them, but you will learn and grow in all of those skills.
And as you learn more about them, these skills don't disappear if your first business doesn't work out. They become part of your toolkit forever. Even if you decide to go back to corporate, these skills stay with you. They make you a stronger employee and they make you more well-rounded and maybe even a great candidate for another position.
We also can be certain that by taking action and persisting through inevitable failures and setbacks, you will grow your emotional resilience and self-confidence. You'll grow those things in ways that will serve you for the rest of your life. Every time you face a challenge and figure out how to move through it, you're building evidence for yourself that you can handle hard things. I can't overstate the importance of these things enough.
And what's even more important about these two things, emotional resilience and self-confidence, is that modeling them for your kids is happening as well. So witnessing a business challenge and your kids seeing you move through it in a truly vulnerable and honest way will build their emotional resilience and self-confidence. Is there anything more valuable that we want for our kids to learn? For me, no. Okay? Those are the things. Those things will pay dividends for you and your family.
Entrepreneurship and starting a business can really start to build and flex that muscle. Okay, we also can be certain that if you figure out enough of what doesn't work, what does work will start to emerge. This is how innovation happens, through experimentation, iteration, and learning from what doesn't go as planned.
But let me be honest with you, that emotional resilience we talked about, here's where that comes into play. Because when you keep trying things and they aren't working, when you keep hearing no, and when no one is responding, and when you host an event and no one shows up, it will be easy to make that mean something about your capability. But what I want to offer is that it's just valuable information. Everything is an experiment, and if you just keep trying things, trying new hypotheses and figuring out what doesn't work, you will eventually find out the things that do work.
Which leads me to the next thing I can guarantee for you when you start a business. I can guarantee that when you take action on a business idea, you start collecting valuable information, and this information inspires every next action. Every conversation with a potential customer, every attempt at creating content, every small experiment gives you data that you simply can't get by thinking and planning and researching alone.
So many moms want to know exactly how to build a business. They want the exact steps and the roadmap, but in reality, the path is not etched out in permanent marker. And maybe in the, in the spirit of me living in Colorado now, we just moved here from Maryland. I want to present an analogy of like hiking a trail that you've never been on before. You can study the map all you want, but once you start walking, you will discover things and you will figure things out about the trail that you weren't expecting. Right? You may discover a bridge is washed out and then you have to find a creek crossing and figure out how to navigate that. That creek crossing might lead you to a beautiful meadow that you never knew existed and that opens up a completely different route for you to follow. Okay, each turn reveals new information that determines where you step next.
And here's something beautiful that I see happen with my clients all the time. Even before they create their first dollar in revenue, they experience profound changes. They develop more confidence, more energy, and a sense of purpose. They become faster and better at making decisions. They develop more self-compassion and less perfectionism. Their problem-solving skills sharpen. Like I mentioned before, their emotional resilience grows. They truly become better leaders both in business and in their families. And the most beautiful part is that these changes are exactly what make them more likely to create a successful business.
This is how we create more certainty. I want to repeat that again. This is how we create more certainty. It's by growing the skills that we can only get by taking action in uncertainty. By building the skills, experience, and confidence that can only be developed by taking action when the outcomes are uncertain.
The process of starting a business, regardless of the ultimate outcome, has inherent value that's completely independent of whether you make money and succeed wildly and build something that lasts forever or not. Starting a business is an opportunity to learn and grow as a human being in ways that simply aren't available to you in your traditional role. It's a stepping stone to whatever your next opportunity is. It's a stepping stone to your next aha moment, your next version of yourself. It's a glimpse into new possibilities and capabilities that you never knew you had.
And listen, it's impossible to find the thing that works until you're brave enough to start doing things that might not work. Every successful entrepreneur will tell you that their biggest breakthrough came not from their first idea, but from what they learned by trying ideas that didn't work out as planned.
Actually, next week in the episode I interview Thyme Sullivan. She's the co-founder of a company called Unicorn and she talks about this exact concept that there never was the clear business idea at the beginning. Right? It was just her and her co-founder wanting to create better products for women and both her and her co-founder were the breadwinners of their family. So definitely subscribe to the podcast so you can get notified of that episode next week when it airs, because it's such a powerful conversation about the value of getting started without certainty. Even if there's a lot of risk, right? Even if you are the breadwinner of your family.
Just the act of starting a business changes us in the most remarkable ways. And we don't have to wait for the outcomes of whether our business is successful or not to see those changes begin. Starting a business changes you on day one. On day one, you start to grow your confidence. You start to grow your skills. You start to become more resilient. You get value even just from deciding to try something new and taking action on that idea. Just for deciding to honor your own priorities and your own dreams and goals, you become a different version of yourself.
A quick personal story that isn't so much business related, but I remember applying to UNC Chapel Hill's MBA program early on in my corporate career and I was denied. It was heartbreaking because it was also the only school that denied me that I applied to after high school as well. So UNC had denied me twice. An experience that I definitely wasn't used to. Right? I was the straight A student, the accepted into all of their schools, didn't know much about failure, right?
And when they denied me from the MBA program, I felt like such a failure. And also, the act of applying to the business school created so much value for me even though I was denied. There was a piece of me that was proud that I went through the process and wrote those lengthy essays that are full of reflection and critical thinking. I hadn't done anything like that in so many years.
I also learned from the feedback exactly what would make me a stronger candidate, something I would have never known without applying. I also realized that I needed stronger recommendations, so I got serious about making connections with C-suite employees at my company so that they could know my work more intimately and so that I felt comfortable asking them for a favor when the time came to reapply and I needed a recommendation.
That was the thing. For whatever reason, UNC denying me twice from their university didn't deter me. I became the underdog in my mind that was going to prove to them that they made a mistake by denying me. And truly how this story ends is that I applied again a couple years later and was admitted into the program, finally. And not only was I hellbent on getting into the program, which happened, but once I was in, I made it my personal mission to perform at the highest level to prove I belonged.
Okay, applying to the program without the certainty of whether I would be admitted was necessary and what I learned through the process of being denied was valuable for both my academic development and future and my ability to move up in the company. All the things that I did to be a stronger applicant made me also a stronger employee.
When we truly understand that no matter the outcome of anything, there's value in trying, we find the courage to take action. We stop waiting for permission from the universe and we start giving ourselves permission to just begin.
So, if we're not going to wait to feel certain, how do we find the courage to begin? And I want to give you some powerful questions that will shift your relationship with starting your business. Instead of some of the automatic questions that our brain gives us, like, "What if this doesn't work?" which keeps us stuck in fear, I want you to try asking, "What will I gain even if this doesn't work out?"
This question opens up possibilities instead of closing them down. Okay, when you focus on what you'll gain regardless of the outcome, regardless if you win or lose, suddenly the risk feels much more manageable. I want you to ask yourself, how will I be different just because I decided to try? Think about all the ways I talked about my clients growing before they even make their first dollar. Because they decided to try, they are more confident, they have more energy and a sense of purpose, they become faster and better at decision making, and also they learn how to prioritize their needs and wants, how to honor their own priorities, which sometimes can get lost in motherhood, right? Where we're focused on how we can serve everyone else. Even just scheduling time for ourself is a bold act, one that will not only benefit us, but will benefit the entire family.
And let's imagine that you try to start a business and it doesn't work out. Or let's even say maybe one of my clients tries to start a business and ends up returning to corporate. Though, I haven't yet had a client return to corporate. But if they do, they are not the same person. They are now a corporate employee who has developed business skills and resilience that you can't get in a traditional role, which makes them an even stronger and valuable employee.
When we stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone and discover new capabilities, even if the business itself doesn't pan out for whatever reason, we are a more remarkable version of ourselves. I also want you to ask yourself, what will I learn in the process of doing that I can't learn any other way? Okay, you can read every business book ever written, take every online course, listen to every podcast episode, but there are things you can only learn by actually doing the work of building something from nothing.
And the final question that I want to offer is, how do I need to change in order to be willing to try something new that I might fail at? This question gets to the heart of the matter. What beliefs do you need to release? What stories do you need to rewrite? What version of yourself do you need to become in order to try something new filled with uncertainty?
I really want you to walk away from this episode with a completely different relationship to uncertainty. So here's what we've covered today. We explored why your brain craves certainty and how the need for certainty is keeping you stuck. We exposed the myth that certainty is possible, right? Or even necessary to start a business. We identified the real certainties, the guaranteed growth and learning that happens when you decide to begin. All the things that you can be certain of. We also talked about why starting a business will never, ever be a waste of time, regardless of the outcome. And I offered some new questions to ask that focus on growth instead of fear.
Uncertainty is not your enemy, okay? It's actually this amazing doorway that you can walk through to everything that you want. Any certainty that we have in life is really just perceived certainty. It's not actual certainty. There are no guarantees. Every successful business owner, every person living a life that you that you might admire, who has taken chances, walked through that doorway of uncertainty to get where they are. The certainty you're waiting for, the guarantee that your business will succeed, just doesn't exist, unfortunately.
And listen, if it did exist, everybody would be doing it and then it would not be as rewarding, I promise. What does exist though is the absolute certainty that you will grow, learn, and become a more remarkable version of yourself, a more confident, capable version of yourself just by trying. That growth starts the moment you decide to begin, not when you achieve some arbitrary measure of success.
So get started. Start becoming that version of yourself. And remember, as you grow, learn, and become a more confident, capable version of yourself, those things make you more likely to succeed in entrepreneurship.
Your action this week is simple. I want you to stop waiting for certainty. Check yourself. Figure out where you are holding back because you want to be certain that any one business idea or action will lead to success. And I just want you to start taking action from courage instead. Okay, choose one small step that you can take towards your business idea this week. Not a perfect step, not a guaranteed step, just a brave step. Maybe that's researching your market, writing your first piece of content, having a conversation with someone in your target audience, telling friends or family about your business idea. Whatever it is, take that step from a place of curiosity and courage rather than certainty and control.
And honestly, too, I have some great free events coming up. I have one for the next couple weeks. So log on to the website, Jenna.Coach, join my email list, and you'll be notified of all the great events that are coming up where I will be hosting free webinars talking about how to create a winning business idea, the four vital steps that you need to get started, the simple and essential steps that are accessible to all moms. So, take that action. Take it from bravery, even if it's just exposing yourself to a little bit more of what this podcast and what CBJ coaching has to offer.
Remember, this podcast is here to help you build momentum and get there one step at a time. You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need guarantees. You just need to be willing to begin where you are with what you have and trust that the path will unfold as you walk it. Just like a lovely brisk hike in Colorado. Okay?
Keep tuning in, subscribe to the podcast. I want you to subscribe because it helps to hold yourself accountable to keep taking action. Every episode, I talk about taking action. I talk about what you can do. I give ideas. Subscribe to the podcast so that every time you open up your Spotify or your Apple podcast, there is the download button that pops up and the new episode pops up and you know that if you just listen, there will be ideas and ways that you can keep moving forward.
Okay? I'm here to support you every step of the way. All you have to do is listen, and if you want to take this work a step further, all you have to do is ask. I will 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 I want to talk about uncertainty. I sent an email out about this topic a couple weeks ago and it really resonated with a lot of you and so I wanted to dive into the topic a little deeper. Because the truth is that we all want certainty in life, and aside from layoffs, really, our traditional roles have pretty much scratched that itch. They've provided a structure where we can, for the most part, be certain that we have a job. Though in episode 31, I talk about the reality that being randomly laid off does mean that traditional roles are also not entirely risk-free.
But for the most part, most days on the job, we are certain we have a job, certain we have clients or work to do. We're certain that money will show up in our account each month. We've also been trained to take comfort in that certainty. So when we talk about starting a business, our brain immediately goes to questioning whether it will work out.
There's this voice in our head asking all of those questions, the questions like, but what if this doesn't work out? What if I waste all this time and energy and have nothing to show for it? What if I fail and proved to everyone that I should have just stayed in my safe corporate job?
Right now, you might be feeling a pull towards something different, something that would give you more flexibility with your family, more autonomy over your time, and frankly, probably more excitement about your work. And the problem is, starting a business feels like stepping off a cliff blindfolded. Okay, you've built your career in a traditional role and entrepreneurship is anything but traditional. You want guarantees. You want to know with absolute certainty that if you take this leap, it's going to work out. You want someone to hand you a foolproof roadmap and say, "Follow these steps and you'll have a six-figure business in 12 months."
You want to know that you won't get burned out again, that you'll actually enjoy the work, and that all this effort will be worthwhile. And here's the thing, wanting certainty isn't wrong. It's actually completely natural and understandable. When you've worked so hard to build financial stability for your family, when you've invested years in building your reputation and career, the idea of risking all of that feels terrifying.
Your brain is literally wired to keep you safe and safe feels like staying exactly where you are, even if where you are is draining your mind, body, and soul. But what I've learned, both in my own journey and in working with so many moms, is that waiting for certainty is actually the most risky thing you can do. Because while you're waiting for guarantees that will never come, time is passing. Your kids are growing up, your energy is being depleted by work that doesn't fulfill you, and that dream of creating something meaningful, it keeps getting pushed further and further into someday territory.
Today I want to shift your entire perspective on certainty and show you why the best time to start your business is now, not when you feel certain, but precisely because you feel uncertain.
Let's dive in. I want to start by really understanding this deep craving for certainty. Because once we see it clearly, we can stop letting it run the show. Think about certainty for a moment. Truly being certain. And I want to ask, what does it feel like in your body when you imagine having complete certainty about your business? There's this sense of safety, right? This feeling of being in control of knowing exactly what's going to happen and when. It feels like you could finally take a deep breath and relax into the process.
When we imagine having certainty, we picture ourselves confidently taking action. Not second guessing our decisions, not worrying about wasting time or money. We imagine moving forward with this unwavering conviction that everything is going to work out exactly as planned. So no wonder we want it so badly. Who wouldn't want to feel that secure and confident?
But here's what's really happening when we demand certainty before we start. We're essentially asking to know the outcome of a journey we've never taken. Using skills we've never developed or utilized in a market or industry we've probably never navigated. It's like asking to know what childbirth is like before having a kid. No matter what, that first birth story is going to be full of uncertainty. No matter how many books you read, classes you take, and podcasts you listen to, there is going to be uncertainty in that process. You don't know what to expect. There are no guarantees.
And without those answers, without knowing for certain that our business will succeed, it feels completely reasonable to postpone taking any action. It feels completely reasonable to postpone getting started. We tell ourselves we'll get started once we feel more certain. Once we've done more research, once we've found the perfect business idea, once we've saved more money, once the kids are older, once, once, once.
But here's the truth that, of course might sting a little, that the certainty that we're all waiting for, it just doesn't exist. It never has and it never will.
So let's get really real about this for a moment. Of course, certainty doesn't exist when it comes to starting a business. And how could it? If you've never created a business before, how can you feel certain about the process or the outcome? It's literally impossible.
And here's something also a little bit mind-bending that I want you to think about. If you were already certain that your business idea would work, you would have already created it. What? Yeah. If there was certainty in this business decision, you wouldn't be spending time listening to a podcast about starting a business. You would have already just gone out there and created it. Because if you were certain, you would already know how to do it.
The fact that you're uncertain isn't necessarily a problem. There's uncertainty in everything in life. It's just evidence that you're considering something new and challenging, which is exactly where growth happens. And every successful business owner that you might admire or look up to, every person who's built something incredible from nothing, they started without certainty too. They didn't have a crystal ball. They didn't have guarantees. They had an idea, maybe some skills, and the courage to step into action even without guarantees that it would work.
Okay, we can't be certain that any one business idea will work, whatever that means to you, whether it be revenue or impact or some other metric that you measure success by. But what I've discovered in my years of doing this work with so many moms is that there are things we absolutely can be certain of when we decide to start a business. And these certainties, they're actually more valuable than the outcome-based certainty we think we want.
So stay with me here. We're going to talk about what you can be certain of and why this will change everything. Because this is where this conversation gets really exciting. Because I'm about to give you some guarantees, real actual certainties that you can count on when you decide to start your business.
Okay? We can be certain that once you start a business, you'll begin learning new tools and business skills. Okay? Whether your business succeeds wildly or fails spectacularly, you're still going to learn things about marketing, sales, customer service, project management, problem solving, all the things that you can't learn any other way. That doesn't mean you're going to be great at all those things. That doesn't mean you're going to stick around long enough to master them, but you will learn and grow in all of those skills.
And as you learn more about them, these skills don't disappear if your first business doesn't work out. They become part of your toolkit forever. Even if you decide to go back to corporate, these skills stay with you. They make you a stronger employee and they make you more well-rounded and maybe even a great candidate for another position.
We also can be certain that by taking action and persisting through inevitable failures and setbacks, you will grow your emotional resilience and self-confidence. You'll grow those things in ways that will serve you for the rest of your life. Every time you face a challenge and figure out how to move through it, you're building evidence for yourself that you can handle hard things. I can't overstate the importance of these things enough.
And what's even more important about these two things, emotional resilience and self-confidence, is that modeling them for your kids is happening as well. So witnessing a business challenge and your kids seeing you move through it in a truly vulnerable and honest way will build their emotional resilience and self-confidence. Is there anything more valuable that we want for our kids to learn? For me, no. Okay? Those are the things. Those things will pay dividends for you and your family.
Entrepreneurship and starting a business can really start to build and flex that muscle. Okay, we also can be certain that if you figure out enough of what doesn't work, what does work will start to emerge. This is how innovation happens, through experimentation, iteration, and learning from what doesn't go as planned.
But let me be honest with you, that emotional resilience we talked about, here's where that comes into play. Because when you keep trying things and they aren't working, when you keep hearing no, and when no one is responding, and when you host an event and no one shows up, it will be easy to make that mean something about your capability. But what I want to offer is that it's just valuable information. Everything is an experiment, and if you just keep trying things, trying new hypotheses and figuring out what doesn't work, you will eventually find out the things that do work.
Which leads me to the next thing I can guarantee for you when you start a business. I can guarantee that when you take action on a business idea, you start collecting valuable information, and this information inspires every next action. Every conversation with a potential customer, every attempt at creating content, every small experiment gives you data that you simply can't get by thinking and planning and researching alone.
So many moms want to know exactly how to build a business. They want the exact steps and the roadmap, but in reality, the path is not etched out in permanent marker. And maybe in the, in the spirit of me living in Colorado now, we just moved here from Maryland. I want to present an analogy of like hiking a trail that you've never been on before. You can study the map all you want, but once you start walking, you will discover things and you will figure things out about the trail that you weren't expecting. Right? You may discover a bridge is washed out and then you have to find a creek crossing and figure out how to navigate that. That creek crossing might lead you to a beautiful meadow that you never knew existed and that opens up a completely different route for you to follow. Okay, each turn reveals new information that determines where you step next.
And here's something beautiful that I see happen with my clients all the time. Even before they create their first dollar in revenue, they experience profound changes. They develop more confidence, more energy, and a sense of purpose. They become faster and better at making decisions. They develop more self-compassion and less perfectionism. Their problem-solving skills sharpen. Like I mentioned before, their emotional resilience grows. They truly become better leaders both in business and in their families. And the most beautiful part is that these changes are exactly what make them more likely to create a successful business.
This is how we create more certainty. I want to repeat that again. This is how we create more certainty. It's by growing the skills that we can only get by taking action in uncertainty. By building the skills, experience, and confidence that can only be developed by taking action when the outcomes are uncertain.
The process of starting a business, regardless of the ultimate outcome, has inherent value that's completely independent of whether you make money and succeed wildly and build something that lasts forever or not. Starting a business is an opportunity to learn and grow as a human being in ways that simply aren't available to you in your traditional role. It's a stepping stone to whatever your next opportunity is. It's a stepping stone to your next aha moment, your next version of yourself. It's a glimpse into new possibilities and capabilities that you never knew you had.
And listen, it's impossible to find the thing that works until you're brave enough to start doing things that might not work. Every successful entrepreneur will tell you that their biggest breakthrough came not from their first idea, but from what they learned by trying ideas that didn't work out as planned.
Actually, next week in the episode I interview Thyme Sullivan. She's the co-founder of a company called Unicorn and she talks about this exact concept that there never was the clear business idea at the beginning. Right? It was just her and her co-founder wanting to create better products for women and both her and her co-founder were the breadwinners of their family. So definitely subscribe to the podcast so you can get notified of that episode next week when it airs, because it's such a powerful conversation about the value of getting started without certainty. Even if there's a lot of risk, right? Even if you are the breadwinner of your family.
Just the act of starting a business changes us in the most remarkable ways. And we don't have to wait for the outcomes of whether our business is successful or not to see those changes begin. Starting a business changes you on day one. On day one, you start to grow your confidence. You start to grow your skills. You start to become more resilient. You get value even just from deciding to try something new and taking action on that idea. Just for deciding to honor your own priorities and your own dreams and goals, you become a different version of yourself.
A quick personal story that isn't so much business related, but I remember applying to UNC Chapel Hill's MBA program early on in my corporate career and I was denied. It was heartbreaking because it was also the only school that denied me that I applied to after high school as well. So UNC had denied me twice. An experience that I definitely wasn't used to. Right? I was the straight A student, the accepted into all of their schools, didn't know much about failure, right?
And when they denied me from the MBA program, I felt like such a failure. And also, the act of applying to the business school created so much value for me even though I was denied. There was a piece of me that was proud that I went through the process and wrote those lengthy essays that are full of reflection and critical thinking. I hadn't done anything like that in so many years.
I also learned from the feedback exactly what would make me a stronger candidate, something I would have never known without applying. I also realized that I needed stronger recommendations, so I got serious about making connections with C-suite employees at my company so that they could know my work more intimately and so that I felt comfortable asking them for a favor when the time came to reapply and I needed a recommendation.
That was the thing. For whatever reason, UNC denying me twice from their university didn't deter me. I became the underdog in my mind that was going to prove to them that they made a mistake by denying me. And truly how this story ends is that I applied again a couple years later and was admitted into the program, finally. And not only was I hellbent on getting into the program, which happened, but once I was in, I made it my personal mission to perform at the highest level to prove I belonged.
Okay, applying to the program without the certainty of whether I would be admitted was necessary and what I learned through the process of being denied was valuable for both my academic development and future and my ability to move up in the company. All the things that I did to be a stronger applicant made me also a stronger employee.
When we truly understand that no matter the outcome of anything, there's value in trying, we find the courage to take action. We stop waiting for permission from the universe and we start giving ourselves permission to just begin.
So, if we're not going to wait to feel certain, how do we find the courage to begin? And I want to give you some powerful questions that will shift your relationship with starting your business. Instead of some of the automatic questions that our brain gives us, like, "What if this doesn't work?" which keeps us stuck in fear, I want you to try asking, "What will I gain even if this doesn't work out?"
This question opens up possibilities instead of closing them down. Okay, when you focus on what you'll gain regardless of the outcome, regardless if you win or lose, suddenly the risk feels much more manageable. I want you to ask yourself, how will I be different just because I decided to try? Think about all the ways I talked about my clients growing before they even make their first dollar. Because they decided to try, they are more confident, they have more energy and a sense of purpose, they become faster and better at decision making, and also they learn how to prioritize their needs and wants, how to honor their own priorities, which sometimes can get lost in motherhood, right? Where we're focused on how we can serve everyone else. Even just scheduling time for ourself is a bold act, one that will not only benefit us, but will benefit the entire family.
And let's imagine that you try to start a business and it doesn't work out. Or let's even say maybe one of my clients tries to start a business and ends up returning to corporate. Though, I haven't yet had a client return to corporate. But if they do, they are not the same person. They are now a corporate employee who has developed business skills and resilience that you can't get in a traditional role, which makes them an even stronger and valuable employee.
When we stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone and discover new capabilities, even if the business itself doesn't pan out for whatever reason, we are a more remarkable version of ourselves. I also want you to ask yourself, what will I learn in the process of doing that I can't learn any other way? Okay, you can read every business book ever written, take every online course, listen to every podcast episode, but there are things you can only learn by actually doing the work of building something from nothing.
And the final question that I want to offer is, how do I need to change in order to be willing to try something new that I might fail at? This question gets to the heart of the matter. What beliefs do you need to release? What stories do you need to rewrite? What version of yourself do you need to become in order to try something new filled with uncertainty?
I really want you to walk away from this episode with a completely different relationship to uncertainty. So here's what we've covered today. We explored why your brain craves certainty and how the need for certainty is keeping you stuck. We exposed the myth that certainty is possible, right? Or even necessary to start a business. We identified the real certainties, the guaranteed growth and learning that happens when you decide to begin. All the things that you can be certain of. We also talked about why starting a business will never, ever be a waste of time, regardless of the outcome. And I offered some new questions to ask that focus on growth instead of fear.
Uncertainty is not your enemy, okay? It's actually this amazing doorway that you can walk through to everything that you want. Any certainty that we have in life is really just perceived certainty. It's not actual certainty. There are no guarantees. Every successful business owner, every person living a life that you that you might admire, who has taken chances, walked through that doorway of uncertainty to get where they are. The certainty you're waiting for, the guarantee that your business will succeed, just doesn't exist, unfortunately.
And listen, if it did exist, everybody would be doing it and then it would not be as rewarding, I promise. What does exist though is the absolute certainty that you will grow, learn, and become a more remarkable version of yourself, a more confident, capable version of yourself just by trying. That growth starts the moment you decide to begin, not when you achieve some arbitrary measure of success.
So get started. Start becoming that version of yourself. And remember, as you grow, learn, and become a more confident, capable version of yourself, those things make you more likely to succeed in entrepreneurship.
Your action this week is simple. I want you to stop waiting for certainty. Check yourself. Figure out where you are holding back because you want to be certain that any one business idea or action will lead to success. And I just want you to start taking action from courage instead. Okay, choose one small step that you can take towards your business idea this week. Not a perfect step, not a guaranteed step, just a brave step. Maybe that's researching your market, writing your first piece of content, having a conversation with someone in your target audience, telling friends or family about your business idea. Whatever it is, take that step from a place of curiosity and courage rather than certainty and control.
And honestly, too, I have some great free events coming up. I have one for the next couple weeks. So log on to the website, Jenna.Coach, join my email list, and you'll be notified of all the great events that are coming up where I will be hosting free webinars talking about how to create a winning business idea, the four vital steps that you need to get started, the simple and essential steps that are accessible to all moms. So, take that action. Take it from bravery, even if it's just exposing yourself to a little bit more of what this podcast and what CBJ coaching has to offer.
Remember, this podcast is here to help you build momentum and get there one step at a time. You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need guarantees. You just need to be willing to begin where you are with what you have and trust that the path will unfold as you walk it. Just like a lovely brisk hike in Colorado. Okay?
Keep tuning in, subscribe to the podcast. I want you to subscribe because it helps to hold yourself accountable to keep taking action. Every episode, I talk about taking action. I talk about what you can do. I give ideas. Subscribe to the podcast so that every time you open up your Spotify or your Apple podcast, there is the download button that pops up and the new episode pops up and you know that if you just listen, there will be ideas and ways that you can keep moving forward.
Okay? I'm here to support you every step of the way. All you have to do is listen, and if you want to take this work a step further, all you have to do is ask. I will 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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