Bullish: Launching Your Empire While Your Youthful Mojo Is Sky-High

Jennifer Dziura career advice Fridays on TheGrindstone and life coaching advice Tuesdays on our sister site, TheGloss.

I introduced reader “Christine de Pizan” in this week’s Bullish Life: The Things We Can’t Have Now, which dealt with the emotional side of waiting: sometimes the things we want in life depend on other people we cannot control, and sometimes our goals simply must be slow-cooked.

Now let’s talk about when to drop whatever you’re doing and take over (some particularly thrilling corner of) the world.

Christine wrote:

Hey Jen-

As I’m sure you’re probably busy with tons of more important things- in my mind you are a wise sage so I just wanted to ask you what your thoughts are on the following: I am a freelance designer (clothing) wanting to start my own clothing line. I’ve been working on it in my free time for the past 6 months but I bartend 3-4 days a week to pay bills.  The good thing about bartending is that I can make anywhere from $1,500-2,000 a week and have been able to save up. The bad thing about it is the shifts run anywhere from 12-15 hours a day and I’m so drained I have no energy to put into my line or anything else. I am emotionally, mentally and physically drained.

I know in your blog you’ve talked about working hard now and saving for the future but I’ve come to a point where I just want to quit so I can devote 100 percent of my time to my line and design things. My job is not too keen on schedule requests so asking for fewer shifts really isn’t a viable option.

I’ve saved $54,000 so far and my expenses come up to about 3k a month. So in theory, I should be okay for about a year and change. My question is when should I quit/should I quit/what would you do? I’m scared. I’ve had a job since I was sixteen, so no money coming in is very scary. But everyday I go to work I die a little inside. I don’t want to act impulsively and make a stupid decision.

- “Christine”

Thanks for the compliments! And also: amazing job saving up your bartending money!

I’m sorry, though, that your job is driving little drink umbrellas deep into your soul. “Emotionally, mentally, and physically drained” people can’t take over the world. (See Bullish: How to Avoid Burnout and Not Become a Brain-Eating Zombie, Part I and Part II). So, now is an excellent time to ask these questions, and question the validity of the fear that is keeping you in place.

I’ve written before that an entrepreneurial drive is like a sex drive – while everyone’s  a unique and special snowflake, of course, one’s entrepreneurial libido tends to be higher when one is young.

My colleagues regularly refer to me as “adventurous” because I go to foreign countries alone and don’t have a “steady job.” That is not adventurous; that is normal modern life. If you think a “steady job” is safer than having multiple income streams, you are greatly overestimating your company’s “obligations” towards you. (See Bullish: How to Run Your Career Like a Business.)

When I was 19 and started a company, I took risks that I probably wouldn’t take today. The threat of bankruptcy meant little to me; buying a house was many years off. I personally co-signed everything. I would drive all night for a meeting. I had nothing to lose. Succeeding seemed very life-or-death. As it turned out, I failed. The experience was not a loss; five years of full-time entrepreneurship have greatly informed these columns.

So, I’m generally prejudiced in favor of going for it. But for Christine, to me, the big questions here are:

- Could you get another similarly-paying bartending job if you needed to?

- Where does the money from your clothing line come from? Who would pay you and when?

If the answer to the first question is yes, that’s definitely a vote for quitting.

The second question deserves some thought: for anyone wanting to start a business, make sure you aren’t making decisions based on artistic expression, being able to self-identify in a new and exciting way, imagining your launch party, or other emotional concerns.

For instance, for years, I tossed around this idea I had for opening a hipster craft store: The Craftykat! Sure, I had all kinds of cool ideas (I would sell vintage record album covers and all the other old random gewgaws that Bust magazine always wants you to turn into lampshades and dirndls). But was that, exactly, a business model?