I'm also slightly obsessed with quoting Mean Girls and sending sarcastic GIFs, but that's neither here nor there. For as long as I can remember, I've had entrepreneurial squirrel-brain. When I was 10 years old I made homemade locker magnets and sold them to my classmates. They were terrible. I thought I was a genius. For the next 15 years, I went through the motions of school, graduation, more school., another graduation, and a deeply unfulfilling junior career. I kept myself sane with various side hustles... none of which I could ever give my full attention- I was too busy surviving by doing work I didn't love.
I was excited, terrified, overwhelmed, and really, really, REALLY nauseous. Like, pull over on the side of the highway during my morning commute to spew, nauseous. I had to tell my employer I was knocked up before I even told my family, because I was just so sick. I had been running myself ragged for this company for months; 12+ hour days, no breaks, working weekends. I thought that would earn me a little bit of leeway when I became so incapacitated by my pregnancy- instead, I was offered a demotion "on account of the sickness and hormones." Yep, I'm serious... it was not a good time..
If you ask my husband to describe me, he will immediately and without hesitation say, "Difficult." I should probably find this offensive, but to be perfectly honest, it's true. If you want something done, just tell me I can't do it! I am a professional pain in the ass, and I believe that where there's a strong will, there is always always a way. I resolved to find a way to stop working for other people and design my own career, so I could be the professional and the mother I really wanted to be.
Here's the part where most people these days will tell you they "manifested success" for themselves, or "awakened their calling," or something like that. Well, I didn't do any of that. I set a concrete, achievable, and realistic goal: Make 75% of my current income through self employment. I developed a strategic plan to hit that goal, and then I worked my ass off to make it happen. And you know what? It did, and then some.
They say when it rains, it pours. When my son was just a couple months old, we became the sole caregivers for my three youngest siblings basically overnight. That's zero kids to four kids in a matter of months, in case you were counting... which effectively put an end to my brand new project management career. Self-employment was my solution, and despite having the world's most bizarre variation of parenting responsibilities, I managed to make it work.
Freedom. That's the whole reason I started a business back when my son was an infant- I needed the freedom to earn a full time income on my own terms, and on my own time. Just two years later, I moved my family to Europe to live out a dream we've had since we were teenagers- we even appeared on HGTV's House Hunters International, LOL. These days, we're back living outside of Vancouver, BC with our unconventional house full of toddlers and teens- and my business has provided for us every step of that journey.