The Journey Begins in a Week!

As I embark on my last week at my current job, I am both sad and happy. Sad because I will miss seeing friends every day, but happy / excited about my new adventures.

Last Monday (3/6) I put in a revision to my resignation letter from a few weeks ago, and gave my current employer two weeks’ notice. My original letter had an eight to ten week exit strategy, however I need the time to get my business up and running to have it functional for a potential May 1st opening. There is a lot of things that I still need to do and cannot if I am still working at my “day” job.

A lot of people are going to criticize me for my decisions. I get that, they do not have the vision that I have of the end result. Yes, it will take a lot of hard work. Yes, it will take some mistakes along the way. Yes, there will be moments when I think “what the heck was I thinking.” However, this has been a lifelong dream of mine to try and start my own company. As I have written in past posts, I am a very analytical person. I have been thinking of all the potential problems that could occur, while at the same time thinking about all the success that will be generated from this venture. I kept telling myself to wait for the right time instead of taking the leap, but I don’t want to wait any more. Too many signs in the universe are confirming that I made the right decision.

For over 25 years I have been helping other companies decrease costs and increase profit. I did it for four different entrepreneurs and two huge billion dollar corporations. At each company, I was able to improve upon or create many analytics and policies that affected the bottom line positively. When I decided to move on from each company I gave at least two weeks’ notice, in some cases four to eight weeks. This gave the company time to make sure they had all the knowledge they needed from me to continue with the success of the department/company. However, on the rare occasion when they did not think my work was important they would tell me that and I would only give them two weeks’ notice. There was a company in my past where it took them several years to replace my position with someone who could do all the things I did. In another company, the workload I had done had to be split between my successor and other managers because of the skillset required.

I owe a big thanks to my college counselor when I was going for my bachelor’s degree at Robert Morris University. He encouraged me to major in Management and minor in Quantitative Business Analysis in order to see the big picture in a corporate environment and then take what I learned to analyze situations and numbers. It has made all the difference in my career. When you work for a small/medium sized company that only has maybe 30-40 people you see firsthand how everyone interacts (good and bad), the communication breakdowns and successes, the workflow from start to finish of all processes, and the importance of employees to an organization. I started my career in small entrepreneurial businesses which then helped me when I got to the bigger companies. By starting in smaller organizations, I was able to see the interaction then when I got to the billion dollar organizations I could scale my knowledge to help them. It has also helped me in my career to understand technology. Throughout my career, I have either headed up or been a part of a team for four ERP system migrations and have worked closely with many IT employees who taught me a lot of things about networks.

Leaving the corporate world is not easy for someone like me who loves the business world and the adrenaline from it. However, if I am lucky enough to grow my new company, I will be the head of my own company which is exciting in itself and that will keep me going on days when I feel defeated.

I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason and that there is Life After Lemons. My health scare happened for a reason. I had lost sight of taking care of myself because I was focused on other people and my job. I was pushing myself to meet impossible deadlines and requests. I was not taking time off to recharge. I was trying to please everyone in the organization and along the way forgot about myself. I did it twice during my tenure. Both times coming very close to being hospitalized. The second time was the wakeup call where I actually listened.

I started listening to my body and what it was telling me, then I started opening my eyes to other things going on that were Lemons in my life. As a friend told me once to start seeing things as they actually are, you cannot unsee it. She was right. That is what started me reevaluating my life and deciding that if I can help other companies succeed, why not take all my knowledge and put it to good use with my own company.

No one knew at the time what I was planning. I did not tell anyone because I knew there would be negative reaction. Until I was ready to make the change I kept it to myself and tried figuring out the timing. Then the six weeks of hell at my current job happened and that made my decision and timing a lot easier. I spent about four weekends trying to figure out the logistics and finances. While both are going to be tight, I decided I cannot wait until all my ducks are in a row. I have half of them right now and that’s enough to get started the rest will line up soon.

I am trying to do this startup on my own financially, but I may have to go back to the corporate world for short assignments to get through some things. I am in no way giving up on my dream should that happen. I will pursue my dream in the evenings and weekends. I will continue to save and work hard until the business can sustain me and a couple employees. I am not a quitter. This has been a dream of mine and I will see it come to life and become successful.

I have been busy testing my molds, working on my plan, working on pricing, and location. It truly is a labor of love. I will be posting some of the pictures at the end of this post of what I worked on today.

I hope you all continue to follow me on this journey. I will be working with a website developer in the next couple weeks to add to this site a way for people to order candy. By no means is it an obligation. The primary reason for starting this blog was to talk about Lemons that happen in our lives and how we continue on after they are gone. The premise for the blog remains the same. I will talk about other things besides this particular journey. However, right now with this being my last week at my current job and the excitement of starting something new I thought it would be good to update my faithful readers on the current developments.

I hope that in following me, you will get the confidence in yourself to do what makes you happy either as a hobby or a career. I love making candy, it is a labor of love for sure. The essential oils I sell are fantastic in supporting my wellness. My discovered love is writing. Looking back at high school and college I never would have thought that I would be writing as much as I am. Come on, I’m a numbers person, an analytical person, I’m not a writer. But here I am writing about things in my life hoping to help others.

If I can do all that I am doing, I know you as my reader can do what you love too. Do not let fear rule you. Look it in the eye and say “not this time.” You will still have lemons in your life, but they won’t leave as sour of a taste in your mouth as before because you stood up to your fear.

If I haven’t said it lately, thank you for reading my postings. Thank you for following me on Facebook. You all have helped give me the confidence to take this path and for that I am grateful.

Wedding/Bridal Shower Lollipops
Wedding/Bridal Shower Basket
Thank You
St Patrick’s Day Lollipops
St. Patrick’s Day Basket

2 thoughts on “The Journey Begins in a Week!”

    1. Thank you Jenine! Three years ago I would not have seen myself doing the things I am doing. But somewhere along the way I got some self confidence and guts! It’s will be rough at times, I know that. But the end result is going to be fantastic.

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