hey badasses welcome back to the badass careers youtube channel which is here to empower you
to design a career that you love and go out there and get it now today i want to chat about
entrepreneurship versus corporate because it's been just over a year since i quit my fortune 500
job in paris i was literally like emily and paris working for companies like lvmh louis vuitton
hennessy group and l'oreal in paris i'm a new zealander originally and on paper living the dream
and for just over a year now i have been running my own business badass careers and have literally
designed my own job and of course and now the ceo and founder of my own company and every
day i get to work with some of the most talented and ambitious high achievers from all around the
world and i know that a question that's coming to mind for quite a few people is do i stay on
and corporate and develop my career over there and become an entrepreneur where i really get to drive
initiatives and have a beautiful and successful career within the realms of a company so a
corporate or a startup or whatever that looks like for you or should i go over here be my own boss
start my own online business digital nomad work from anywhere in the world all of that kind of
stuff because it's you know portrayed as being something super sexy and there's also a lot of
chatter out there at the moment like oh screw the 95 95 sucks if you really are ambitious and
successful and bright you're going to do your own thing and it's honestly not the case believe me
in my career glow up program i have some badass people in there oh my gosh and we do a lot of
work in this program on who you are as a person your nature your nurture your strengths your
values your personality your energizers the kind of life you want lifestyle design the 10-year plan
the long-term vision we reverse engineer and i can tell you through this experience not everyone is
built to be an entrepreneur and not everyone wants that it just wouldn't align with the kind of work
or the kind of feeling they want to get from work or the kind of place that they want work to hold
in their life it just wouldn't suit them and their dreams and their goals and there's not a better
option it's what's better for you and of course there's so many pros and cons to both in this
video specifically i wanted to focus on the things that i do not miss from corporate whatsoever
and it's going to be an interesting lens for you to be able to see you know the pros and cons
a little bit of this entrepreneurial world now just full disclaimer this has worked out really
well for me i love what i do i love working for myself and i think that's the reason why badass
careers is growing so fast and touching so many lives around the world because i'm in the right
place for me and i did a lot of work with a coach to figure out what was right for me you know am i
going to go back to new zealand and continue on my corporate career or am i going to do my own thing
and this was the decision that i took at the time i've tried it and it really really suits me so
what i want you to listen for is not necessarily just my perception or my opinion but how might you
feel about becoming an entrepreneur maybe becoming an online coach or consultant or a freelancer
basically being able to run your own life run your own career as you like as you're going to
hear about there are things about my personality and my lifestyle factors that made this an obvious
choice for me and it may not be the same for you so i think that's going to be really interesting
i'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section as i go through this video about what
surprised you or what resonated with you so without further ado let's jump straight into it
okay so the first thing that i really do not miss about the corporate world is this structure i find
it very henry ford very industrial revolution area that for most companies we still have to
show up from monday to friday nine to five and very few people are genuinely doing anything to
disrupt that model there are some companies now trailing four day working weeks flexible working
especially with covert that's really accelerated that process which is awesome work from home
and so on and so forth but i remember feeling so claustrophobic within this model because
personally i'm a night elf i wake up at night i have my best ideas in the evenings and the
afternoons i find mornings really tough so i would always find getting up and getting to work on time
hard i would be rushed i would be stressed and it didn't work for me and i'd really find myself
developing my flow and getting into my best ideas and my best work around two or three all the way
to about 8pm so i used to pull quite long hours as well because the model just wasn't really made for
my natural energy flow i also used to find it really frustrating that i had to almost like a
child parent relationship ask my manager to please go to the doctor or take an hour here to i don't
know pick up a prescription or do something for myself personally i had to alert the facts and
it wasn't normal it wasn't normal to take two hours off in the afternoon exercise and make
up for it later if you wanted to what i love about running my own business is that i design
my weeks i design my days if i want to start work at 10 or 11 and work on a sunday afternoon that's
my choice i don't have to answer to anyone and i don't have to ask anyone's permission
i'm a boss girl so bringing it back to you does the natural rhythm of a nine-to-five work for you
are you at a phase in your life we could really use that freedom and flexibility because
maybe you want to start traveling when we can again or you have small children or whatever that
is is that really a core core value for you for me personally i am married to a frenchman so having
my freedom and that sort of location independence i can work in new zealand i can work in france it
doesn't really matter is critical for me so those are factors to take into consideration as well
and of course it's not black and white there are in-betweens you know there are working from home
policies there are four day weeks there are all sorts of stuff but quite frankly i don't know
if i could go back to an environment where i couldn't go and exercise for a few hours
in the morning because i wanted to and make up my work when i wanted to because i'm an adult who's
a high performer and i get things done and my outputs are great so just trust me to do it my way
the second thing i really do not miss about corporate is having to especially as a woman
to get dressed up with heels and corporate attire and makeup and of course i was working in luxury
and fashion in paris so it's going to be even more exaggerated but still in most professional
environments there's a kind of dress code and i'm definitely just not that kind of person
i love getting dressed up and filming and having my day of makeup and hair and filming
and that kind of stuff but then i also love my missy barn getting [ __ ] done
like track pants on i'm definitely a big fan of working from home in my pjs i work on the couch
i know people don't really recommend it and they've struggled with it as well throughout
covered i love it i wouldn't change a thing we were only in lockdown given in new zealand for
about six or seven weeks and i was in my element i was very very happy so that's also just another
piece of evidence that i'm in the right place for me another thing that i really do not miss from
the corporate world is having to seek consensus and validation so consensus i guess at the peer
level and get buy-in and then all that validation for the layers going up whenever you want to move
something forward something that would drive me crazy is just you know wanting to take action we
had a great idea the consumers wanted it like it just made sense and yet to get it moving
because of people's egos and politics and just you know managers needing to feel like they're being
useful whatever it is it would be so slow to get moving and we'll just have to do the rounds and
play the game just to do good work and what i love about badass careers is that if i have an idea
that i know is gonna work and that i know is gonna really help my clients to get to the
next level in their careers guess what i get to do it i don't have to ask anyone's opinions
and i'm definitely able to just push through and get so much more done and delivered and actioned
within an equivalent time frame now i have people within my career glow-up program who need a team
it's one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle for them and their career happiness and
satisfaction i've always loved working on the team but i don't need to collaborate get the buy-in and
do the validation thing to be happy you know like i don't crave that at all in fact it frustrates
me a lot and while i do miss having a team and i just do miss having the idea of us all working on
a goal together for me now i'm starting to hire my own team and so that feels really good for me
obviously when you're just starting out that can't quite happen yet so you need to ask yourself you
know am i a lone wolf am i okay to yes people can you know coach me and i can have sound boards and
mentors but at the end of the day the decisions on me i'm responsible i'm accountable whether it's
a win or a fail from what you're going to learn it is on you and you need to be decisive and you
need to be the one driving that forward so again it's another personality preference there as well
on this note as well because i get to make the rules and determine the priorities i also get to
do things like choose how i'm going to do good so while you're working for some companies they often
you know donate a certain portion of their profit to an association of their choice or sometimes
they partner up with with initiatives in the community and that kind of thing that's awesome
but what i love now is being able to choose the impact i'm making i'm already helping people to
gain and so much life satisfaction because i get career clarity they land their dream jobs like i
have messages every day being like i'm so happy thank you so much so it's super fulfilling and
i get to make the decisions in terms of who i hire in terms of diversity charities that i give to the
organizations that i partner with and the causes that i get to impact as well so i get to design
the impact and contribution i want to make and the success in this business actually creates a
ripple effect as well needless to say something that i really do not miss about corporate at all
are the politics the games the sharks the big ego sometimes like being scared of going into
a meeting because that top boss is a real [ __ ] and just having to sort of pander to certain
personalities if that makes sense like i didn't like that like let's stop wasting time guys
like we all want the same thing right are we all here to achieve the same objective aren't we all
on the same mission so why is this becoming about power and politics and ego and that kind of stuff
now some people thrive on that some people thrive on the challenge of winning people over
building strategic relationships and playing the game and that's awesome maybe you're more suited
to rising through the top in a big corporate for example but for me that was part of my job
that i really didn't enjoy for me my values were really around work hard do a great job fulfill the
mission that you're meant to be here fulfilling and make your consumers happy essentially and
speaking of consumers i was working in corporate hr in my last role and i felt very far away from
the end user so i would be designing initiatives i designed a mobile application on the company
culture i designed trainings online learning all sorts of cool stuff that i knew was going to help
people but i didn't know their names i didn't know their struggles i didn't know their pain
points i didn't really know what they were going through i remember in corporate feeling so far
removed sometimes from the actual employees which is why i decided to study human resources in the
first place and what i love about badass careers is that with my clients we have a really special
relationship because i get to know of course their career goals and dreams but also their life more
generally what they've been struggling with sometimes for months or years for example when
they have no idea what they want to do they need that career clarity that kind of thing and their
wins are my wins and i know them and so that can be another big question to ask yourself which is
do i prefer close one-to-one deep relationships in general and this this reflects my whole life
i'm an introvert it's how my friendship circle looks do i prefer that or do i like to touch
many many people but i don't necessarily need to you know know them in depth like do i prefer an
audience do i prefer a group do i prefer a crowd do i prefer knowing that i'm impacting an entire
industry an entire company an entire country whatever that is for you that's also another
big question that can help you to place yourself in your career as well now i'm lucky enough that
i get to have both i touch hundreds of thousands of people through my content my youtube channel my
instagram my linkedin and i have my one-to-one relationship so of course you can have both
but i think it's interesting to understand you know if you were to start your own business what
would you be doing and would that really fit with the kind of person you are now i know that this
year has been a little bit strange in terms of commute but that's something that i will never
miss is on those days where it's freezing and it's raining like not having to get up at the crack of
dawn get dressed get ready and head on out just because we have to be there at a certain hour and
i remember looking at young parents when i was in paris and they just looked so stressed they were
rushing out the door they were running taking the kid to create trying to get to work on time
already in the metro already sweating like on their way to on their way to work and that kind
of thing i remember saying to myself i don't want like a five kids one day to be running all the
time and especially as i just said like on a cold wintry day it's gray it's raining it's freezing
been like oh alarm going off time to get up go go go rush just to get somewhere to be on time
again it just doesn't really sit with my vision of life whereas some people don't mind that
at all some people they get up early naturally they go for a run they have their breakfast they
meditate they hop on the train or the bus to get to work and they listen to a podcast and they're
happy as but it just wasn't for me the next thing that would really grind my gears and corporate is
all of the corporate kind of lingo and just being in a meeting and being like yeah i
find your idea really disruptive can we circle back can we just park that for a second because
it'd be really great to now focus on the blue sky thinking and like you know like this kind of like
lingo and language like guys can't we just speak like a normal human and i guess the biggest one
of all that i don't really miss is working so hard for someone else's dream and this is real language
again that an entrepreneur would use i mean yeah i work long hours in my business i'm not gonna lie
but i worked really long hours at l'oreal too but it was to build someone else's business it
was for you know the ceo at the time jean-paul agon it was for you know at the end of the day
my work was contributing to the business success and their business success and that's cool
but there is something that i find really gratifying now where every hour every minute
you put in it's going towards your vision and your project as well but i'm not saying that this
should be your top priority for some people they want to be entrepreneurs they want to rise through
the ranks in their profession they want to master their topics they want to be seen as an expert or
a thought leader they want to do a really great job on a mission that means something to them
and for them that fills their cup right up it does not need to be your own business your own
mission for it to be meaningful whatsoever please know that to be the truth at the end of the day it
just comes down to what suits you personally and what you need out of this life i think for me at
the end of the day the fact that i need to live between new zealand and france for the rest of
my life because of my french husband of course it makes sense for me to work for myself and at the
same time he's still working for a corporate here in wellington and new zealand because
doing his own thing doesn't appeal to him so we're gonna have to navigate that anyway as a couple but
i hope that this video has provided you with some really interesting insight into my world and maybe
some of the pros and cons of being an entrepreneur versus staying in corporate so if you have any
questions about you know how to decide whether you're more set out to be an entrepreneur do your
own thing work in corporate startup professional world whatever that is or however that looks like
not for profit maybe or maybe for you doing both so always having a career and a side hustle will
be your sweet spot because that's the kind of person you are i'd love to learn more down below
ask me any questions that come to mind and if you would be interested in doing
the career glow up with me to get this level of clarity to figure this kind of thing out about
what does your career look like a career that suits you then definitely click the link below
and you can book a call with me and let's get to know each other and see if it could be a good fit
for you and until next week as always stay badass and i will see you in the next video bye you