Why Solopreneurs Choose Purpose Over Paycheck (Full Transcript)

[00:00:02] Speaker 1: It's never going to be like a steady paycheck like it used to, right?

[00:00:05] Speaker 2: For the benefit of freedom, I am willing to live with the instability.

[00:00:11] Speaker 3: Somehow things start to work out.

[00:00:14] Speaker 1: As solopreneurs, we have goals, but we don't realize that our work is touching others.

[00:00:21] Speaker 4: You have to be prepared to overcome a lot of skepticism. I'm like the crazy cat man, but professionally.

[00:00:31] Speaker 5: She saw me and started sobbing. It was like, this is all worth it.

[00:00:46] Speaker 2: I can do this. I can absolutely do this. I was a lawyer. I was a corporate lawyer. So, pretty big change. And definitely a lot of people thought that I was running away to join the circus. I'm Francesca, and I help people with romantic love. So, my business is helping people with dating, human connection, etc. And just navigating the modern love journey, which is challenging for many people for various reasons.

[00:01:25] Speaker 3: I'm Brandon. I started a company called Science. We're changing the way kids look at science, the way it feels, and also how it feels for young girls who are in science. Because my daughter is my chief product tester, so she's six and a half.

[00:01:38] Speaker 1: Well, I'm Danielle Desir-Corbett. I am a grant discovery curator. And I run grants for creators for the last four years. So, artists, podcasters, filmmakers, it's hard to find money for them. But that's what I do all day, all night. I run grants for them, and a lot of them have been successful.

[00:01:54] Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Gabby. I own Cafecito Social. It's a Guatemalan coffee brand. And I have a coffee shop. We've been open for two years now. Where's your coffee shop? Gowanas, Brooklyn.

[00:02:05] Speaker 4: I'm Joey Lisvardi. My business is Class Act Cats. And I train cats professionally, which, yes, is a career. And I help people solve behavior problems with their cats. I make content about cats. I talk about cats. I pet cats. Basically everything. I'm, like, the crazy cat man. But professionally.

[00:02:27] Speaker 1: I was commuting from Connecticut to New York City. And that's, like, an hour and 45 minutes commute, door-to-door. And it was very straining. And I remember one day talking to my husband and saying, Hey, listen, I want to quit my job. And he's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not ready. He's like, Come to me when you have your bank account in good condition. So I was like, Okay, bet. I'm going to do a year. I'm going to save my money. And I ended up doing it in six months. I came back to him and I was like, The math is mathing. Let's quit. And funny enough, I was also pregnant. So the decision was, should I leave my corporate, cushy job that has maternity leave or not? And I was like, I just want to be independent. So I just left with all the things on the table and just started the Grants for Critters project.

[00:03:09] Speaker 5: I used to work in beauty. And I was, like, getting promotions. And, like, I thought that was great. And that's what made you, like, successful and what I wanted. And then I realized, this is not what I want. And I had two kids, and I decided that I wanted to do something that really brought my where I'm from. Because not a lot of people know about Guatemala. So I started the coffee brand.

[00:03:33] Speaker 2: Basically, when I was a lawyer, I started a dating advice blog because I just saw a lot of people struggling with things, dating, that I used to struggle with. And I just found it really satisfying. I was like, this is so gratifying to help people with something that's so important and so personal. I was a corporate lawyer, so my clients were all corporations. And I just felt like I want to help people, but I want to help them do something that's more important personally. And then I wound up finding out that matchmaking was a real profession. And I went to matchmaking school at the Matchmaking Institute. And, yeah, exactly. And then I went on Facebook, and I was like, hey, everybody. Hey. I'm a matchmaker now. And everyone's like, I'm sorry, what? I was like, don't worry, it's going to be fine. It's all going to work out. And, yeah, it has. How about you? What were you doing before cats?

[00:04:24] Speaker 4: I started out as a psychiatric physician assistant, and I got really burnt out. I was going to work for, like, 12 hours every day, and most of it was charting or being yelled at or charting well-being yelled at. And I got to the point where I was just coming home every night and doing nothing other than feeding my cat, and he started becoming aggressive towards me. So I worked with his veterinarian, and we figured out, okay, he's bored and frustrated, and so we did some clicker training and started using food puzzles, and I actually paid attention to him. And it worked. And I was like, ooh, I really like this. So talking with a friend who I was like, I wish there was a way I could be, like, some sort of therapist for cats. And she was like, oh, boy. Like, you can. I looked into it, and I was like, why did nobody tell me that this was an option before?

[00:05:20] Speaker 1: It's scary, but you have to push past that fear to move to that next level.

[00:05:24] Speaker 3: People talk about the delusional confidence. And I think that that risk on this side, you're like, hey, I'm just going to do it, and it's going to work out. And when you say it's going to work out, you're putting out there that it's going to work out. You don't have a plan, you don't understand the pathway, but somehow things start to work out. You start to meet the right people, or you start doing things differently. And then you start to look at, okay, now I want this to grow, because this idea that I started with one box, and I was going to help however many, the whole world has this problem, right? So how are we going to help the world? I don't know. We need more boxes. So now we need more funding, and we have to now go talk to people. And you start to kind of realize that, oh, things work out somehow. Maybe not the way that you initially thought, and you wrote down, like I wrote down my plan on an envelope on the back of an envelope, and I have that envelope in my office. It's definitely not that way, but everything on there has been checked off, which is interesting.

[00:06:23] Speaker 5: I didn't even have an envelope that I wrote down on. It was the stupidest thing I did, really. I didn't think about it, because if I did, I would have never left my job, and I would have stayed where I was. It was just like, let's just do it. And I feel like putting yourself out there.

[00:06:41] Speaker 2: That's the hard part for so many people. They can't get over that hurdle.

[00:06:45] Speaker 5: I hate that. It's really like I've been behind the scenes for everything. And now it's like, no, it's important. People do want to hear from you. And positioning yourself too, because up until recently, I'm like, but I'm not a roaster. I'm not this authority in coffee. What am I? Am I a fake? And the reality is, no, I'm not. I just bring Guatemalan coffee the way that we drink it to everyone. And it's taken me a while to be like, oh, people do respond to that. You don't need to have all of these stuffy credentials or anything. It's just bringing people together is enough.

[00:07:23] Speaker 4: You have to be prepared to overcome a lot of skepticism, I think, because a lot of times it sounds like we all have kind of interesting, unique businesses. And people sometimes will look at you like you grew a second head when you tell them what you do. And you have to be prepared to be like, no, really, this is actually a need, and there's a demand for this, and there's actually people out there who will pay you for this. People pay me a lot of money to tell them that, no, you need a cat tree right there. And it's something that they wouldn't think of on their own, and that's where we come in. And you have to be prepared to talk about it and sell yourself, which is really hard.

[00:08:10] Speaker 2: For me, definitely the first couple that I successfully matched. And they were like, oh, we're going to get married and have a family, and it's thanks to you. And I was like, ooh. And I was like, oh, okay, this is a very gratifying feeling. So that was definitely an early win that made me say, okay, nothing feels as good as the satisfaction of somebody saying that to me. So I can do this. I can absolutely do this. That was a big one for me, yeah.

[00:08:42] Speaker 4: I think my first cat I saved from being euthanized was a big win. It was a human-directed aggression case, and I was like, this poor cat is just terrified. And thankfully, the clients of mine recognized that one of their friends was the problem, and I was like, don't say what you're thinking, Joey, don't say it. And then I just blurted out, your friend is an asshole, and your friend is the problem, and honestly, this poor cat is just terrified, and you need to talk to your friend about not chasing the cat around and trying to antagonize them. And I was able to have them do a few things, and the cat instantly responded and started doing better by just slightly changing their behavior. And they were like, okay, so we can cancel the appointment on Saturday. And I was like, cancel what appointment on Saturday? And they're like, well, we were going to have her put down, and we don't think we're going to do that anymore. Oh my god, I'm tearing up now thinking about it, because it... They were really, they clearly really love this cat, and it's been like three or four years since I had this happen, and it's still, I'm so happy that I was able to keep that cat around and keep that family together and keep them from having to make that really tough choice.

[00:10:14] Speaker 1: I think sometimes as solopreneurs, we have goals, but we don't realize that our work is touching others. So one of the wins that I constantly am tracking is the people in my community winning their own grants that they find through us. So whenever they come and say, Danielle, I won a grant I found through you guys, I'm like, I feel like I've won a grant too. I feel like, oh my gosh, we're winning together. And I think that that's important for us to acknowledge. We have metrics and goals, but the people we're touching, people we're impacting, or the animals or anything, there's things going on that we might not see as well.

[00:10:50] Speaker 2: For the benefit of freedom, I am willing to live with the instability of being a solo entrepreneur. And I think it is worth it, but it is a trade-off for sure.

[00:11:02] Speaker 5: Yeah, it's rough because sometimes it's like, as you're building the business, there might not be any financial stability, but the freedom that I get, you can see it with the kids. And I just picked up my daughter. She was with my mother-in-law for a week, and she saw me and ran to me and hugged me and started sobbing. And it was like, okay, this is all worth it because it's the time that I've been able to spend with them and not be at the office. And then it's just, you see it, and it's amazing. It's terrifying, but it's an amazing feeling that you can make that choice for your life.

[00:11:39] Speaker 1: It's never going to be a steady paycheck like it used to. It's not the same, but you can find those ways where you can build in free time and financial stability along the way.

[00:11:49] Speaker 3: You learn new skills, but then you get to also tap in and hone some of the skills that might have been dormant. So I did all this art when I was a kid, and then now that's what we're doing. We're constantly creating.

[00:12:02] Speaker 4: One of my favorite things is getting emails from clients that I've worked with many years later and seeing that they're snuggling their cat or they're still together and just hearing those stories. Our wins aren't always monetary, or you can't put a number on it necessarily because there's so many different things that people need out there, and you never know when you're going to have something to offer to someone that you don't, like other people may be like, you do what? And it really has a big impact on their lives. It's really, like you can't, that is just priceless.