It's been a while now since I've wanted to publish this post. It's been sitting in draft, but now I feel it's a good time to share it. A journey that is close to my heart and a story that should be told, celebrated and used to inspire.
This journey is not my own, but I was honoured to be a part of it; a player, a contributor but not the lead role. That honour goes to my husband.
This is his journey. A journey that started about five years ago.
I noticed a change, ever so subtle at first, but a change non the less. Sure our first born was about 18 months and I was newly pregnant with our second child, but I was still in tune with my husband enough to know that something was amiss.
At first he couldn't put his finger on it, but he felt agitated, restless and annoyed. mostly at work. He liked his job, but he no longer loved it, and his boss and the directors kept letting him down by saying he had good ideas to move the company forward but quite frankly they didn't want to explore them.
I kept asking him if he wanted to go out on his own. quit his job and be his own boss.
Yeah. newly renovated home. mortgage. one income. not likely.
But I persisted with my idea, because I knew deep down his ideas were amazing, well thought out, niche business services that no one else was doing. He had the skills, he just needed the confidence. At first he thought he could wait until our kids were older and I could contribute financially to our income, not burdening his new business with such financial pressure. I was sceptical he could hold out that long as I could see the agony in his face as he trod off to work each morning. And honestly his ideas were so good it was only a matter of time before someone else got in first. There were a million reasons not to give it a go, and only a few to take a leap of faith and do it.
After our second child was born, I sat him down and said
"you are miserable, you hate your job. quit now and start your own business. We will manage and you will succeed."
He wrote a business plan and quietly worked on it for the next few months. We talked and talked and crunched numbers all day everyday. When our baby daughter was three months old on Christmas Eve in 2008 he quit his job. It was then that the Global Financial Crisis hit. Great! But that did not deter my husband. He developed this no fear attitude. We never took out a business loan or overdraft. It was just all hard work, late nights, finding the right clients and getting the job done no matter what. We adjusted to living without the security of a weekly wage, but getting at first invoice out, paid and in our account was pure sweet relief. As time went on my husbands confidence grew, failure was not an option and as he would say he had
'the eye of the tiger'. This was one fight he was going to be victorious.
For the next six months he worked out of the spare room of our house on a table from the op shop, whilst I cared for our two kids at home also. There were times I had to leave the house just so my husband could make a conference call without hearing kids screaming in the background. Meetings were scheduled at a local cafe. Now that seems like such a distant memory.
Flash forward to 2012 and my husband has three subsidiary businesses, employs 11 staff, and best of all is loving what he does. I often forget the journey that he took...the sacrifices we made, the risk of losing it all. But he did it. Sometimes he muses that the fact that we did it at such a tough time was part of the reason why his business was successful. There was simply no other option.
I am so proud and this journey he let me be apart of will a special story I will never tire of telling.
x
