Torriel Harris - Confessions of a Happy Non-Quitter: Why It's OK to Love Your Job AND Your Business

00:02  Hello hello, so my name is Torriel and I'm a career coach, career development coach to be specific and I wanted to talk to you all today about Confessions of a happy non quitter, why it's OK to love your job and your business. So here's the thing, right i think that so many people have the misconception that when you are a business owner, you should automatically quit your job and, you know, just go all in on your business.    

00:31  And so while for some people that is true, for other people's that is, for other people it is not and I think that it's totally OK to not only not quit your job, but I think it's OK to actually like your job. So let's get into this.    

00:51  So the social media illusion, a lot of people, especially let's say 2020 right? Everybody was like, oh, you know, buy it LLC and then what you're going to do is you're going to flip the money, you're going to put it into your business and you're going to do this, this and that, right? And people made it seem like quitting your job was just the best thing since like spread, But it's actually not necessary at all, right because when you think about social media, it's only part of the story you're not seeing the struggle you're not seeing the day-to-day behind the scenes stuff you're not seeing how you know they're struggling to find clients or they're struggling to pay their bills or this and that, right social media, as we know, is such a glorified thing.    

01:37  So don't listen to them people. I think you need to do what is best for you, right that's the most important piece of it. And then not only that, but I think there's so much like gatekeeping on what to do, what not to do, right? People are quick to tell you, oh, this didn't work and you should do this because I do it right but they're not always giving you the different strategies and the different ways to go about things.    

02:05  For example, I've been in business since 2021 so it's three years and I've never heard about collaboration. I never heard about bundles and summits and any of this, even though I've been in business for three years already. So there's a lot of gatekeeping that happens and so when you're relying too much on social media and relying too much on, you know, what other people think, what other people feel and going based all upon that, that's when you go astray that's when you end up losing out on what you could be really utilizing your job for. So with that, we need to reframe guilt about working full time. So, so many women, especially women, we feel like we are not dedicating ourselves enough to our job.    

02:52  And we feel like if we don't go full time into either our job or our business that it's going to seem like we're wishy washy or, you know, we're going to feel guilty because it's like I'm eating up company time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And honestly, and I'm going to get more into like time management and productivity tips shortly. But when you plan things out correctly, you can do both equally just as fine and also avoid burnout.    

03:26  It is definitely possible. And then do both until you can't, right until your inner self says, Nah, we got to make a choice. I, I really do love my job, but man, this business, this business is doing this, this and that, right so you have to make that choice you do have to make. Well, let me refrain. You have to make a decision when you feel it's time you need to make a decision, right? If you feel like the entire time you're running your business and working, if you feel like both are in alignment, both are going well, you don't have any like big decisions to make about it, then leave it as is.    

04:05  Just work. Just do what you got to do. It's OK to love both. Like, why do we need permission to be a multifaceted human being? It's crazy. And it doesn't make you any less of an entrepreneur just because you also work for God or part time or whatever. So yeah, I think we need to for sure get over this guilt that really who told us these things? Like who told you that you're a bad employee if you have business? Like who told you this? So a lot of it is like we create our own mindset about it we create the our own problems about it, but oftentimes it's not there.    

04:49  And if you live your life in a productive and you know, time managed manner, it's not going to be as difficult and you're not going to have that guilt surrounding you. And then not only that, but your job is your built in investor, right? So think about it this way. Let's say, right, you have, you want to buy a program or you want to take part in a mastermind or you want to take part in whatever, whatever the case may be, right? If you're not working but you're also not really taking off in your business, how are you going to afford to pay these things how are you going to afford to pay your bills? So your job literally gives you the ability to invest in yourself and invest in your business.    

05:40  If it weren't for a layoff that just recently happened, I would still be doing both happily. The only reason I have been looking for anything is because I did a gut check and I said, you know what, maybe this is the time to actually just focus on your business. But that doesn't mean I didn't love my job any less i actually really, really loved my job. So there's so many benefits to keeping your job and running your business at the same time. And it's so much so that they don't have to be very, I think that a lot of times we think, oh, if I'm doing this, then I can't do that no, you, you can absolutely do both, but it's about prioritization.    

06:25  It doesn't have to be a competing thing it doesn't have to be a thing where one takes precedence over the other. You just have to manage your time properly, honestly speaking, right? And here's the thing about me, I ended up, so I started in 2021 with doing mostly resumes, but also career coaching. And then at the same time, I was also working in that field. So my job was always within career development, at least for almost a decade now.    

06:53  And so because of that, it would feed off of each other it wasn't a competition to be honest, the reason why it became very difficult for me around year 2 is because I was unaligned, like completely unaligned. I hated my job and I hated what I was doing in my business. I cannot and resumes never ask me into your resume because I'm not going to do it. I'm going to tell you flat out no. And then I'm going to have to give you a lecture on to why I'm not going to do it so the point is I got super burnt out and I said, you know what, I'm just going to quit my business.    

07:29  I'm not going to do this anymore. It's fine i didn't fail. I just didn't like I, I just don't want to do that right. And so come last year, July is when things just started falling into place for me so I ended up getting a new job, but at the same time, I also had the bug to start my business again, but just not in the way that I was doing it before, but in a different manner.    

07:55  And so since then, I've been in alignment and it's felt right. So that is the only reason I have not started looking for a new job yet but that's the read. The stuff comes across my desk and I like it. I'm applying. So I firmly think that you can and you should work at the same time as your business if it's something you enjoy, if it's something you're in alignment with, if it's something that you that makes you happy, right working at my job and running my business was making me happy. It was difficult, but it was making me happy it made me feel fulfilled.    

08:38  And then you can leverage the skills from your nine to five. So like I said, I had been in career development for almost a decade. So the things that I was doing for work was the same thing I was doing for my business.    

08:53  So I made sure that I never left the field after I started my business because first of all, it's something I love i'm really good at career development. I was never formally trained all the of the places I worked at, I just picked things up and I, I started to understand the strategy and everything myself. So it just became something that I really enjoyed doing. Plus it was helping me to shape the skills that I needed for my business.    

09:21  I think that if I would have quit and I would have just focused all in on the business. There are things that I learned in the last three years from working that I didn't know prior. And I think that you're always learning, you're always evolving, you're always developing. And so whatever ways that you can do that, I would say do it we don't want to stagnant, right? So for me, working full time plus running the business helped me to leverage my skills from my nine to five to the business.    

09:54  And I think that if more people did that, they wouldn't feel so.    

10:01  Kind of like lack of clarity as they're running their business or they're, they're not going to feel so much imposter syndrome. And we'll talk about that too. But I, I think that it's really important to be in alignment with the job that you have plus your business. So here's the thing. Sometimes you want to do something that's completely different from your, from your job, right like let's say, let's say you work an IT and you're like, I want to open a business about knitting. Well, that's very different, right? So how much skills can you leverage? Well, let's see in IT you're doing whatever form of IT or an IT is not my Forte so I'm not going to get specific, but let's say coding, right? And say coding, that means that you have to strategize about how to use different codes in different ways, right? So you need to then be able to use your, your skills that you learn from that and somehow fit it into the business.    

11:07  How can you utilize those skills, those transferable skills? So just like if you wanted to go from 1 field to another and as you're working, it's the same concept where you're figuring out what pieces of this puzzle goes to that one, right i don't want to fit a square in the two circle, right? But I want to fit a square into a square. So you have to really make sure like, what is it that transfers over to that?    

11:35  And then you have to set boundaries and you have to communicate, right? I think that so often we're like, oh, I have to keep everything on a hush. I can't really talk about my, my business at work. And in some cases that is true, right i, I'm not going to discredit those who, who aren't able to openly express about their business and stuff like that but for those who are not in those situations where there's like Ndas or you know, any kind of non competes or blah blah blah, right even if there isn't a non compete, if your business is different than your job, even though you might utilize the same things, you can still sign that non compete and not be going against the law, not be going against the contract that you all put in place.    

12:26  That happened in my last job, right? The same, like I said, the same time that I got the job was the same time that I started thinking, oh, I think I should do this again, right. And so when I originally interviewed, they asked me because the way that my LinkedIn was set up and honestly now still is, is it talks about my business. So they asked me straight up, are you planning on doing business and I said, no, this is tiring. I'm over it i just want to work for somebody else out of that, right? I didn't say quite like that, but you know, but then when I got the job and I'm like, oh, maybe I do want to do my business again, I had to just straight up be like, listen, I changed my mind.    

13:07  Is there any kind of documentation I need to sign? Who do I need to talk to because I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to jeopardize what I got going on at my job because I suddenly have an itch for my business again. So I had to make sure that I communicated what was going on, what I was doing, I was moving about it, and even what type of stuff I was trying to do in my business. But not only that, but you also have to set boundaries for yourself, right? If your job goes from nine to five in that 5, go stop working overtime.    

13:44  Of course there are projects and there's this and there's that where sometimes we have to. But it's important that you protect your time and your energy while you're doing both because it is difficult i'm not going to sit here and sugarcoat it just because this presentation is blue and pink and pretty doesn't mean that I'm going to tell you pretty lies, right it is difficult, but when you put your systems in place, when you put your boundaries in place, when you put your time management in place, all of those things make it a little less hard.     14:18  So time management strategies, one of the things that I love to tell my clients is, and I'm sure you all have heard of it before, but it's time blocking right? Before you could do a time block, though, I want you to do a time audit every day for a week, maybe two weeks, but a week is like the minimum. I want you to track from the time that you normally get up and so the time that you normally either go to sleep or wind down for the night, right because sometimes we're in bed, but we're not sleeping.    

14:48  So when you wind down for the night, or excuse me, from the time you wake up to time you wind down. And I want you either every half hour or every hour to document the things that you're doing. And if you're working, cool. But I want you to be specific, Oh, I was doing XY and Z. And then that way you can kind of track, OK, this is, this is where my time is going. Because a lot of times we don't realize we'll say, oh, I don't have time to do this i don't have time to do that. But in reality, we really do have the time. It's just been squandered away doing other things, right? When you think about the things that you can get, you can get money back.    

15:29  Sure, the government isn't printing out new bills for you right then and there, but you can always make your money back. But time, time is something that you never, ever get back once it's gone, that's it, It's gone. So you want to make sure that you're using your time correctly and properly so that as you're setting up your business, as you're getting in the swing of things, as you're making sure that's running but also at the same time making sure you're not dropping the ball for your job and making sure you're doing all the things you need to do and showing up the way you need to show up and all of these things so you don't get fired.    

16:04  You need to really see where your time is going. It's so important because otherwise it makes it very difficult and then again, like I said, it could put you in a situation where you can get fired or you can lose out on, on clients and all of these things, right. Another thing you can do is the the four DS, right? Do defer delegate the loop. So do that is what are the things that you do on a daily basis or weekly basis that you need to do like they are the utmost importance and you cannot not do them right.    

16:41  Then you have delegate. So let's say for example, you work nine to five. Whether you work in remote or not doesn't matter. You work nine to, five you get off, you unwind, you're fine by five thirty right? But let's say you're like, oh, I really, really want to work on my business right now but that mound of dishes is staring at, well, do you have friends do you have family? Do you have kids? I do have someone that can lend a hand where you can be like, hey, I need you to do me solid can you do the dishes for me while I work on this for 1520 minutes That's deferred and it works.    

17:20  All right, So you have do defer delegate so that if you can.    

17:31  Actually, sorry, what I just described was delegate defer. I mean, describe defer. Defer is putting something off for later, right so let's say you know you have a project to do for work and you have six months to do it. Now here's the thing, especially if it's a very consuming task or consuming project consuming job, you again, you want to make sure that you're doing your job you don't want to get fired. You don't want to have any Dings against you professionally so do what you got to do right? But let's say you're one of those people who, you know, maybe you had other things to do in the day and you're like, OK, I can work on this project for an hour after work, which I don't particularly recommend i think you should have those boundaries in place so that you're not taking work on.    

 18:26  But sometimes you got to do what you got to do, right? But if, let's say you can put off the project for a little bit, maybe a week, and you're like, OK, for this next week after 3:00 or after I get off, I'm only going to work on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for my business, then make sure that you're doing that right that's different. But the important thing is to come back to it you have to come back to that task because it has to get done and that might not have been the greatest example because again, you want to do the things that you have to do for work in order to not be fired, not to have anybody like say anything to you.    

19:05  But I'm just saying if you need to do what you got to do and you can do it, I would say do it for sure. So yes, that was what do defer delegate, which we mix those up or whatever and then delete, right? So those are the things that you don't need to do at all they are not adding not a dime to your pocket. It's not adding any kind of value so last year, yeah, last year, 2024 the very beginning, I said, you know what, I spend way too much time on Instagram. I don't care enough to be on this platform anymore. And so I went from being on Instagram for a few hours at a on, you know, at a time to maybe 40 minutes and then it dropped down to about 15 ish minutes now.    

20:00  Now it's to the point where you have to really be like, hey, I sent you something on here, Please take a look. Because I'm never on Instagram anymore, like ever. I check it once maybe every three four weeks, so once a month basically. And even then, sometimes those clicks are accidental. I'm not really trying to go to Instagram. So for me, I realized it was too much of A time suck it was wasting my time, time I can't get back.    

20:31  So I said, you know what, let's let's get rid of it. And so you have to see what is it past what are the things that you want to get rid of what are the things that aren't adding any value to your life, to your business nothing. Because I'm sure that like me, you have something that you do that just has nothing to do with anything. So.    

20:57  Also you have to fight the imposter monster when it comes to working full time, when it comes to doing, you know, your business at the same time, you need to be keeping track of your accomplishments so that you can overcome that self doubt, because being a business owner is hard enough as is, right but when you're already doing a lot and you have a lot on your plate from your job, plus you're doing your business, it's, it's easy to be like, I'm failing at everything today i'm not getting anything right i'm not doing anything well, all of you say.    

21:35  So it's important to keep track of the things that you're doing that are moving the needle for you both in your job and in your business. One of the things that I like to say is you are not your career and you are a dope individual, period, right? So you have to constantly remember your dopeness. And the way that you can do that is by creating what I like to call and I'm bombless.    

22:03  Now, people have different like titles for this list. I did not create this, but the concept is I'm bomb at XYZ because da, da, da, da. So this is a colloquialism, especially here in America. But I'm bomb means I'm really good at it, right or I'm really dope or I'm really whatever adjective you want to give yourself, but as long as it's a good and positive adjective, please give it to yourself.    

22:31  But you want to make this a list so that you can keep track of it so for example, if I were doing an I'm bombless, I would say I'm bomb at career coaching because I know how to piece together strategies for the women that come into my world regardless of what their industries are. I am bomb at career development because when I have a concept or when I know a concept that I want to teach, I can easily facilitate it without an issue, without any kind of trepidation, right? So go on and on about yourself so that you can see it for yourself how wonderful you are, how dope you are, how amazing you are.    

23:10  All of those feel good things because like I said, it's so easy to get caught up in the things that aren't going well. It's so easy to get caught up in the things that feel very tight. Very challenging. And so in order to overcome that, I would definitely suggest doing the I'm bomb list or any variation that you want to do so yeah, I I mean, at the end of the day, it gives you a written proof that you are impactful. And so again, right, you can even do this when you're thinking about, well, what kind of business do I want to do or if you're thinking, do I want to stay at my job, you can see does it intersect with each other, right and the I'm bomb list helps you to do that.    

23:59  If you wanted to, you can go onto my website and pull out the I need I bring, which is a worksheet. And it helps you to see what it is you you need from a job and what it is you bring to a job so need meaning not just like I want to work remote or I want to do this or that, but rather it's the specific type of job duties you want to be able to do and you need to do like what are your non negotiables, right and then I bring is the physically the proof to back it up.    

24:31  So that plays on the I'm boundless a little bit. And then the last thing I want to talk about is knowing when the right time to leave. So like I said, right, you have to do that gut check. Don't just leave a job just to leave it. Don't just leave because you think it's good to do or you know, you want to be like everybody else, right? You need to know when is the best time to leave for you? Are you no longer aligned? Are you finding it difficult keeping up with the job? Are you finding it that you're bored? And there's a couple of of things that happen to make you realize like, OK I, I should leave now i shouldn't be doing this anymore.    

25:21  So you really have to figure out, do a gut check when is the right time lead because when you put in that resignation, it's hard to take it back. It's hard to eat that crow. So I was just really strategizing and when all else fails, the crow's a convolist. I I love suggesting that because it's a tried and true method of what works. Do pros and cons let's to see should I say should I go what are the pros of saying? What are the pros of leaving what are the cons of saying what are the cons of leaving? So I hope that this presentation was helpful.    

25:58  The other thing I want to share with you is I created you're not boring and your LinkedIn doesn't have to be either. This is a workbook it's an all inclusive workbook on how to create your LinkedIn in a way that is true to you and that's not boring. It is filled with chat GPT or any kind of AI you use prompts, and it's filled with what exactly is needed on your profile to make it stand out to, to make it stand out in the sea of sameness, as they say.    

26:30  Because here's the thing, a lot of people make their LinkedIn so freaking boring and it just doesn't need to be. Linkedin is social media. And so because of that, I want you to spice it up, Put in your personality. If you're not boring, which I know none of you are, then you need to really put that personality in there. That's what's going to make you stand up that's what's going to make people go, oh, that's who this person is.    

27:00  I mean, let me find out a little bit more. She might be my people, and that could be for networking, that could be for future employers, that could be for recruiters, whatever, whatever. So I wanted to give this to you so that you can have that and you can, you know, be able to spice up your LinkedIn. And as a bonus within it, I also created templates for your banner. So there's 15 in there.    

27:24  I believe all of them have the ability to be used on regular Bamba. If for any reason you're finding difficulty using something because it's premium, please reach out to me. But I think it should be fine. I think everything is good on that end. The other thing I wanted to tell you about is the Confidence Lounge so this is a career development community. If you are looking for business tips, do not come.    

27:51  I don't have those for you. I'm still figuring things out for myself, but also I'm not a business coach i am a career coach i am career development coach who helps with careers, right? So if you are a happy non quitter like me and well, I guess like I used to be right and you want to develop your career at the same time as developing your business welcome i welcome you to come in to join us to get these career development classes, workshops i don't work all the class but a workshop and understand more about how to develop yourself as a professional.    

28:25  But if you're looking for business ideas and and strategies and the same for you and then lastly, she will be her the professional visibility membership. So this is my membership that I recently created and it is all about how to get professional visibility. Again, if you are looking for business visibility, you are in the wrong place. This cannot help you. It might help you, but I would suggest maybe not so much or hit me up. We can have a conversation about it. But again, if you are happy not quitter and you're trying to develop more, you're trying to get more, let's say speaking engagements, you know, for your job or you're trying to do consulting or you know, you want to talk to stakeholders and like all of these like higher level things, but you're being overlooked.    

29:20  You're feeling a bit invisible. You know, all of these things where you just don't feel like your efforts are being seen. This is a membership for you. So I will include all these lovely gifts for you. The common Assange is free by the way. She will be heard is my very little ticket membership. It's 7$ for the first month. And then after that, if you want to do the regular membership, it's 27 if you want to do the pro, it is 47 So very low cost, very low barriers to entry and I welcome you on that.    

29:52  So I hope that this was helpful i hope that it made sense. If you have any questions, you can connect with me on LinkedIn i am always available to chat. So thank you all bye.