Do you know what it’s like to feel trapped at your job? To have a job that you never really intended to turn into a career? Do you spend the week looking forward to the weekend and then spend the weekend dreading Monday? My husband and I lived like this for years. He didn’t want to work for anyone else. He wanted to be his own boss, set his own hours, and enjoy the work that he did. I wanted to be at home.
We spent years talking about it and waiting for the other to make it happen. You see, my husband was going to college part-time and I had only done a little schooling after high school. How would we possibly become small business owners? We tried a few small things along the way and never really stuck with any of them long enough to make it work.
The adventure begins
Then, in 2009 my husband took a step. He decided to start a commercial cleaning and lawn care business. It wasn’t a job that I wanted to do. But, it had low start-up costs and he was able to see that it could offer us a way out of where we were stuck.
This was an important thing for us to learn. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed trying to jump right to your desired results. Once I realized that while cleaning might not be a business that I wanted long-term, it could be a stepping stone to something more enjoyable (and get me out of my full-time job and give me more time with my family). It was sort of like starting to exercise. You don’t just drop 50 pounds overnight. You have to start somewhere and each step gets you closer.
We worked for seven months making cold-calls during our lunch breaks and sending letters to local businesses. My husband even used his sick days to make sales calls. Over and over again we were shot down. And let me tell you, people are not very friendly when you are cold-calling and trying to obtain business. Some people are downright mean. I use to sit in my car on my lunch break and recite 1 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” over and over until I worked up the courage to try calling the next name on the list.
During this time we did not tell a single person what we were doing. From our past experiences, we learned that you have to be careful what information you share with people because lots of people are negative. They will find every reason why your idea will not work and why you should not waste your time on it.
If you tell the wrong person a dream or idea, even if they have no knowledge on the subject at all, they will tell you exactly why it can’t work and all the things you should consider. So, we decided not to say a word. Our parents didn’t know, our friends didn’t know, no one knew what we were trying to accomplish.
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