Ep. 202 Four-year book anniversary

Four-year book anniversary

In this week’s episode, Anna celebrates the four-year book anniversary of Leaving the Corporate 9 to 5.

Four years after publishing Leaving the Corporate 9 to 5, Anna reflects on how her journey has evolved since publication, and since leaving her 9 to 5 in 2013.

*Resources mentioned during the episode*

The Outsiders Business Incubator – A year-long business incubator for experienced corporate professionals who want to translate their skills and passions into a profitable and fulfilling business. onestepoutside.com/9to5

Escaping the 9 to 5: A Roadmap –  Download this free roadmap to start planning your transition out of the ‘9 to 5’ and into working for yourself. onestepoutside.com/leaving-your-corporate-job

Book Anniversary

Hello, hello there. This is Anna Lundberg speaking. And this week we have another celebration. So we were celebrating 200 episodes on the podcast not that long ago. And now we’re celebrating four years since the publication of my book, leaving the corporate nine to five. So another self indulgent episode, reflecting on my evolution on what’s happened since the book but also highlighting stories, the continued stories that I’ve lived on beyond a bit of some of the wonderful people who are in the book. So do check out Instagram in particular, I think so you can follow me at Anna Ste Lundberg, we’ll be sharing insights and perspectives from some of the people in my book. So the book let me read the blurb on the back, leaving the corporate nine to five after interviewing 50 People who have left the corporate nine to five to forge their own path, Anna Lundberg has collected their stories and a book they would inspire you with the possibilities that are out there and reassure you that you’re not alone in looking for an alternative. Or they the people interviewed all share the experience of leaving a full time job to pursue something different, that something different has manifested itself in varying ways. The stories include those who have moved into a different sector, gone freelance, launched their own business, created a portfolio career or taken a leap of faith, not yet knowing where the next step would be. As long as the stories themselves, Anna shares additional perspective, from her own experience of leaving her corporate nine corporate job in 2013, and also coaching her clients through the process, drawing out key insights to help you create your own career transition story.

Now looking at my little bio, actually, it’s still very much accurate, the photo is a little bit dated, but apart from that it more or less holds up. Now, if you know me at all, if you’re part of my community, you’ll know that I often talk about my passion. And if I can be so bold as to say my talent for writing and writing is always something I try to focus on as much as possible. In my business. This book was a particularly special one for me, because it became something physical, I could hold in my hands really something that I’d written that I could say I’m an author of it gave me a platform for speaking on podcasts, and it fed into mine still does feed into my business incubator program, what is now my business incubator at the time. It was actually I don’t want to say an easy fix, but it was a cheat a bit of a cheat perhaps because I collected these stories together. So although it is let’s see, it is do 273 pages with index 277 odd, let’s say no, there’s a bit of an atom, less than 300 pages, but a lot. It’s feels like a substantial book, right? Most of that is stories.

And I’ve added my perspective, there’s an intro, there’s an introduction to each section, and a one step at the end and so on. I was really relying on these wonderful people who have been interviewing over the years now it started out as an interview series on my blog. It then became something that I also filmed on video via call rather than just having people’s answers on a Word document. And relatively recently, I’ve turned it into the monthly podcast episode. So at the end of each month, you get the escape the nine to five interview with somebody. But it was a blog that I started, I think 2014 was the first interview. So some of the stories in the book actually are from 2014 15. And what’s interesting, and I hope, important to hear or I believe I assert it is important for you to hear is that so much has changed. For so many of these people and for some people not so much has changed in good ways and bad ways in professional ways in personal ways. I’ve had a couple of people in the book, who I know have gone back to corporate jobs, one or two out of necessity, perhaps one or two out of realizing that that’s what they really wanted to do. And that’s okay, that’s wonderful.

In fact, we’re celebrating that. I hope you get the message from me that we’re not talking about quitting your job or being the only solution.

In fact, it probably is never the solution to the fact that you have quit your job once doesn’t mean that you can’t have another job. People find their dream roles. Now, there are many people who I’d say are tempted back into taking a job simply because they haven’t given themselves a shot. They maybe given up too soon. They’ve had one idea and then when it turned out harder than they thought it would. They’ve just given up and gone back. Perhaps they’ve missed having a team and felt a bit alone and instead of surrounding themselves then with peers and communities and masterminds and getting the support they needed. They have then again chosen to go back to the more familiar core For the environment, so never any judgment, but please know if you are in that process and sometimes tempted back and so on a it’s perfectly okay if that’s what you want to do but make the decision intentionally and be please make sure that you feel like you have tried everything. People often say I’ve done everything, but believe me, you haven’t.

If it’s not working, you haven’t tried everything, it’s up to you to decide when you stop trying.

And it’s certainly up to you to decide how much work you want to put in and pivot and try different things. But if you want to make this work, you can. Now over on Instagram, as I said, I will be sharing some snapshots. I don’t have them all yet, so I can’t tell you too much. But just a quick dip into the book. Um, I’ve Kelly Roach, who had on the podcast, and I was actually working with her as my business coach some years ago, I have sometimes shared very briefly the insights about her journey, because when I was working with her, I was working one to one and a group program. She was certainly successful, but I think she was quite a best kept secret as some people might recognize. And she is now her coaching company is one of the top 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. She’s won lots of awards, she’s got a huge team of I don’t know, 40 people now she has lots of people appearing on videos and running programs for her. She is absolutely on fire. She has another business which she runs with a co founder. And she contributes to a charitable foundation. And most importantly, perhaps she’s made changes personally, she’s always talked about putting family first, she’s moved with her husband and daughter to the sea, and then a bit like myself, although I’m not the fastest growing company in America, I can guarantee. And so she’s really demonstrated his incredible success.

I like to share her as an example. Both are something that I don’t aspire to personally, and I hold my hand up there, because I don’t want a team of 4050 people at least not right now. But also because she’s always worked really hard and diligently behind the scenes. And now I really see that that’s paid off. I may have shared shared in the past Dorie Clark’s book, the long game, if you’re familiar with Dorie Clark, she’s quite a thought leader in America in the space of personal branding and career pivots, actually. And she talks about how she worked, you know, five, six years behind the scenes, writing hundreds of articles and so on. Losing book deals, losing her book agent, until suddenly she breakthrough and her success was exponential. And I think this is another case with Kelly Roach of that happening. Another one of my favorites is Ruth Coetzee, Ruth already when I spoke to her the second time, a few years after her initial interview, a lot has changed in terms of pivoting in our coaching business. But now she’s running two businesses. So she does her original coaching business. She’s also running a training business called optimist coach Academy, where she trains people to be ICF accredited coaches. But again, most importantly, when she shared her insight with me, they’ve moved to her their dream house, they relocated to a different area of London, and they live close to a forest and they really prioritize work life balance. So, you know, huge professional success, we can’t deny that. But also, importantly, perhaps more importantly, prioritizing what really matters.

I never want anyone to feel bad. And including me, let’s say this, I’ll be vulnerable here about not having launched three businesses and charities and move to a dream house and so on. Right? That’s not what it’s about. So please don’t, don’t think there’s that pressure. I hope you can see these stories as inspiring and I certainly do a little push to perhaps be a bit more ambitious and audacious and your goals, also to reflect on what is really important to you. In terms of my own evolution, I think I have shared or certainly shared a couple of episodes ago on the 200th episode a little bit about my evolution and so on. It is very much consistent certainly four years ago, when I published this book, and I started the series as I said in 2014, I still work in much the same area, I have the same foundations of my individual coaching and business coaching. But I a group coaching rather. But I’ve up leveled to in many aspects, right. So the websites look much more professional, the lead magnets, the funnels, the the video workshops, everything just feels much easier.

It’s all very much a rhythm for me creating content. So now, of course, it’s not easy, but things that seemed completely unthinkable.

In fact, when this book came out, I hadn’t even launched the podcast. And now I’ve done four years almost of the podcast, right? I’ve done over 200 episodes. I have had articles published in the press, maybe not as many as I would have liked. But hey, I’ve had some in physical magazines. I’ve had plenty in online publications. I’ve been on lots of different podcasts. I have spoken on stage again, perhaps not so much but out of choice mainly, partly also, of course pandemic in young children getting a little bit in the way but that’s something that I can focus on more in the future. Really thinking about how that definition of success evolves right over these these months and years for everybody because when I quit in 2013 I quit my corporate marketing job. I was single, I wanted the freedom I wanted to be a digital nomad and I wanted to make money blogging and I was very naive. So There will, in fact, be an episode on this very, very soon. But what I want you to think about is being really audacious and ambitious, and idealistic and your big dream and goal, and then be pragmatic and flexible and how you get there. So there can be multiple ways of getting to your bigger goal, right? And yes, the goal may evolve to, as I said, being single and carefree in 2013, traveling 2015 16.

Before I met Luke, really, I want to say living my best life really spending a lot of money, hotel ballooning, and road tripping and paddleboarding and all sorts having amazing adventures and meeting people are having a lot of fun, while dabbling in my business, that of course, shifted when you become part of relationship when I want to take my business more seriously. And I really hunker down and tried to get more systematic in terms of how I was sending emails and showing up on social media and so on. Now, I’ve got to the point, of course, where I’m showing up very consistently and this about then perhaps selling more or growing more, or getting in front of new audiences, having children, as you can imagine, has really shifted. I wouldn’t say my values, but certainly what I’m prioritizing what’s important. I may have said before that one of my colleagues, Coach colleagues has said, You know what, no, this is not our season, she said, This is not my season for necessarily having the success that some of these others have had, perhaps when you’ve got two kids under two, that’s not the moment when you’re also going to be on the TED stage.

And so maybe it is, but perhaps it’s not. And that’s a choice you get to make. The point, again, is getting clear on your definition of success, allowing that to evolve. But also holding on to the bigger vision and then being flexible in how you get there. So for me, yes, I have frustrations, and certainly unfulfilled ambitions, but I feel pretty at peace with where I am, I really tried to be present and focused on being with the kids, when I’m with them on, you know, I’ve been working with a personal trainer and nutritionist I’ve shared that before, lost quite a bit of weight the last few years after having the children, I’m aiming to run a half marathon and publishing my next book, I am focusing on things and that are more interesting, I think, and more important than perhaps necessarily only the traditional career path, even as it stands outside of the nine to five, right, there are still traditional milestones, and so on. And there’s still this definition of success that is accepted in, in the business world to in terms of being a best selling author and having 1000s of 1000s of followers and scaling your seven eight figure business and so on. And if that’s not meaningful to you, or at least if there are other things are more important, that’s okay. Really allowing yourself to, to focus on what’s important to you and being clear on that.

So all this to say that for years since the book came out, I would have loved to have published more books in the meantime.

But hopefully my next book will be out very soon. And I’ll keep up the pace a bit more in the coming years, having come out of the youngest children phase as well as the pandemic of course, I will continue to evolve both what I’m focusing on, I suppose, big picture, and I am looking more at, in person events, perhaps stepping up my game in terms of speaking getting out of my comfort zone, as I always recommend that you do. So I’m trying to role model that as well. It’s easy even for me to get into my comfort zone or just pumping out these episodes. And I’ll do another post on LinkedIn, and so on and just staying with what I’ve been doing. So it’s interesting to challenge yourself sometimes to, to mix things up into to work with a different type of client and try a different messaging and try a different format and less social media perhaps and more in person, more conversations with people and so on. So I’m certainly continuing to evolve and reflect on how I’m getting to my bigger picture vision. And I will be spending more time on that, of course as the year ends, because then it’s this wonderful time when we get to create vision boards and business strategies and plans and all sorts for the next year for 2023. But and I’d love for you to of course head on over to Amazon to find the Kindle or Paperback or hardback, if you’d like a really beautiful high end addition of leaving the corporate nine to five, you can search leaving the corporate nine to five, and you’ll find that or you can go to leaving the corporate nine to five.com. And you find the book, of course, if you have read it, if you’ve got value from it, I would love for you to leave a review because that’s so helpful for other people to find the book as well.

And looking out for the next book, which will be outside of the nine to five.

And in fact, that’s the main message of today that I wanted to get across. That’s been my main lesson and something I keep pushing with my clients and my community. And I’ll repeat here as well. The main shift for me is that when I wrote certainly when I started the interviews in this book and when I wrote the book leaving the corporate nine to five, it was about that moment picture on the front is the the woman with the balloon floating out of the cage and And it was that moment of I quit. Indeed, one whole section of the book was around taking that leap of faith. And that’s what I did not really knowing what you wanted to do or not quite yet knowing what was next right and then creating it once you’ve left. And there are people in there who have created a portfolio career, lots of different ideas and going on and evolving since then, as well launch your own business, perhaps they have grown now looking and having had a bit of a nosy on some of these people’s LinkedIn pages, and so on. Some are absolutely in the same business continuing in the same vein, growing the same business, some have launched a second business, some have gone, as I said, to a nother full time job, maybe making shifts in their work life balance and other priorities. And some would have changed entirely to different business. And all of those paths are absolutely okay. Maybe driven by different things, as I said, maybe financial necessity, maybe not having the clarity on what they actually wanted, maybe. Yeah, no, no assumptions at all. But of course, there are fears, there are concerns, there are challenges that we come across. And this is the key message I always push. Now it’s about ongoing resilience, to cope with those ups and downs that will continue in your business. As you raise the bar, as you challenge yourself at a higher level, you will find some things that used to be crazy, complicated and scary, super easy, and part of your natural rhythm and routine. And other things become difficult, right. And that’s why I talked about the five pillars of building your life outside the nine to five, because it’s not about it’s not only about that moment, when you say I quit, it’s not about that at all. In fact, it’s about getting the clarity on your perhaps evolving definition of success.

It’s working on shifting those beliefs and the mindset, it’s on choosing the right business model. And they use that loosely to cover portfolio career part time work multiple businesses, and so on freelancing and it is about stepping out of your comfort zone, becoming more present as a thought leader, expert, personal brand. And above all, all of these, I think have in common this focus on work life integration, on managing the business alongside children, or their well being and making sure they don’t burn out again, because some of the stories in the books are unfortunately rooted in in burnout, and work and so on. So it’s not only about the moment of quitting, it’s not about that at all. In fact, it is about re imagining success, redesigning what work life integration looks like for you, and being flexible as to how you get there. So again, grab the book, leaving a corporate nine to five if you don’t already have it, do you write a review if you have read and it’s been useful? And here’s to the success of everybody in the book. Thank you, of course, to all of you who were part of the book at the time, and have supported me since. And yeah, here’s to many more. Of course, I am continuing the series on the podcasts. So since 2018, you’ve got another four years worth of interviews, on reimagining success podcast.com on the blog on the website. So do read those as well. And every success to all of you as you pursue your own stories of leaving a corporate nine to five. Thanks so much. I’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to reimagining success with Anna Lundberg. You can find my book leaving the corporate nine to five stories from people who’ve done it and how you can too in paperback and Kindle format on your local Amazon site over gives you both inspiration and concrete tips on how you can craft your own alternative career path. Happy reading

WORK WITH ANNA

Let us help you design a business and a life that gives you freedom from the 9 to 5. There are several options for how you can work with us. Choose the programme that’s right for you.

The Outsiders Business Incubator

A year-long business incubator for experienced corporate professionals who want to translate their skills and passions into a profitable and fulfilling business. onestepoutside.com/9to5

The Outsiders Business Accelerator

An ongoing mastermind for service-based business owners, freelancers and online entrepreneurs who are ready to achieve success on their own terms. onestepoutside.com/accelerate

The Outsiders Business Academy

A self-paced course for you to work through in your own time, to learn – and implement – the foundations of building a profitable business that lets you escape the 9 to 5. onestepoutside.com/course

1:1 Coaching & Mentoring

If you’re looking for one-to-one support to help you achieve your specific life and business goals, Anna has a limited number of spots for individual coaching and mentoring. onestepoutside.com/coaching

10 steps to quitting your job to work for yourself

This roadmap gives you an overview of the most important things that you need to consider so that you avoid some of the most common pitfalls and start thinking practically about how you’re going to make this escape happen.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You might also like

“Everything you’ve ever
wanted is one step outside
your comfort zone.”

Book a free consultation

Get on the phone with Anna to discuss your unique goals and situation to determine the best programme for you, so you can start taking action towards creating the business and lifestyle you desire.

Get a free assessment of your business

Download this scorecard to review where you are on each of the 5 pillars of building a life outside of the 9 to 5, and get clear action steps to help you fill the gaps.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Looking to grow your expert business?

Download this FREE Business Assessment to identify the gaps that are preventing your growth so that you can take actionable steps towards building a more successful and sustainable business.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Outside of the 9 to 5

Anna continues the journey in her new book, where she details what’s needed to sustain your initial escape from the 9 to 5 in a guide to designing and building a profitable business that gives you more freedom, flexibility and fulfilment.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how One Step Outside uses and protects any information that you give One Step Outside when you use this website (https://onestepoutside.com/).

One Step Outside is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

One Step Outside may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

What information we collect and why

We only ever collect the information that we need in order to serve you.

Generally, this just means collecting your first name and email address that you enter, for example, when you request a resource, register for a webinar, or submit a message via a contact form.

If you are a paying customer, we also collect your billing information including your last name and your postal address.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Contact forms

We use Gravity Forms to allow you to contact us via the website. We will use the information you submit for the sole purpose of that specific form and will explicitly ask you to provide your consent to allow us to do so.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Advertising and Analytics

Google

We use Google Analytics to track and optimise performance on this site as well as embedding video content from YouTube, and this means that your web browser automatically sends certain information to Google. This includes the URL of the page that you’re visiting and your IP address. Google may also set cookies on your browser or read cookies that are already there. Apps that use Google advertising services also share information with Google, such as the name of the app and a unique identifier for advertising.

Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to deliver our services, maintain and improve them, develop new services, measure the effectiveness of advertising, protect against fraud and abuse and personalise content and ads that you see on Google and on our partners’ sites and apps. See their Privacy Policy to learn more about how they process data for each of these purposes, and their Advertising page for more about Google ads, how your information is used in the context of advertising and how long Google stores this information.

Facebook

We use the conversion tracking and custom audiences via the Facebook pixel on our website. This allows user behaviour to be tracked after they have been redirected to our website by clicking on a Facebook ad and enables us to measure the effectiveness of our Facebook ads. The data collected in this way is anonymous to us, i.e. we do not see the personal data of individual users. However, this data is stored and processed by Facebook, who may link this information to your Facebook account and also use it for its own promotional purposes, in accordance with Facebook’s Data Usage Policy https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.

You can allow Facebook and its partners to place ads on and off Facebook. A cookie may also be stored on your computer for these purposes. You can revoke your permission directly on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. For more guidance on opting out you can also consult http://www.aboutads.info/choices.

Who we share your data with

We use a number of third parties to provide us with services which are necessary to run our business or to assist us with running our business and who process your information for us on our behalf. These include a hosting and email provider (Siteground), mailing list provider (GetResponse), and a payment provider (Stripe).

Your information will be shared with these service providers only where necessary to enable us to run our business.

How long we maintain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

The main reason for collecting this information is to be able to send you resources, updates and, sometimes, information and products and services, as well as for internal record keeping.

The rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How we protect your data

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that lets you access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and we ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Links to other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Initially created on 18th November 2016, it was last updated on 23rd May 2018 to be compliant with GDPR.

Contact information

If you have any questions or concerns related to your privacy, you can get in touch here >>