In some cases, it’s because of the economy. More often, though, they’re just ready for a new challenge.

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We often associate career moves with employees. But even small business owners sometimes need to move on.

There’s good reason to do so: study after study have shown a link between satisfaction at work and our health. Even the person at the top experiences this occasionally.

But for small business owners, it’s not just a matter of changing jobs. It may require a bold move.

Listen to The BIGG Success Show podcast to hear:

• George share what led to his career move

• 7 signs that it’s time to move on

• The surprising thing that happens when entrepreneurs talk about what’s next for them

If you’re a business owner thinking about moving on, maybe we can help. Leave us a voice message at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mail us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00669-020811.mp3

(Image in today’s post by ilco)

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So Jonathan, you’re a renegade. That sounds so fun … so dangerous.

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Well you know I live my life all around danger. But the renegade side is just taking a different approach to how you earn a living. It’s almost like taking everything everybody says you can’t do and won’t succeed at and then somehow figuring out how to do it.

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The limitations of others

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I think that’s a great point. It doesn’t matter if it works for anybody else. As long as it works for you, that’s all that matters.

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Absolutely. And it’s funny … people think it’s age-dependent to a certain extent and I’ve had people who were 16 come to me and say, “Hey listen. I can’t get anybody to take me seriously because I’m 16 years old, but I have mad skills in the IT world.” And then I’ve had people come to me who are 55 and say, “I have this idea and nobody will take me seriously because I’m too old or I have too much on the line.” But the reality is that you make your own opportunities in life. When people say, “You can’t do that” what they’re really saying is, “I can’t do that. So who do you think you are to try?” You have to understand that and step outside that limitation. Realize that it’s their limitation and not yours. If there’s something you truly believe in, just do it.

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Becoming a renegade

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Let’s go back to your renegade story. You were a lawyer making good money and you decided to walk away to follow your passion. What motivated you to do it and how did you get past your fears and go for it?

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Depending on how you look at it, I had the good fortune or the bad fortune of having a bit of a health issue. I was actually not too deeply into my law career at the job and the career and the firm that everybody wants to be at making a great living. After working a three-week stint with very little sleep and very little downtime, my immune system essentially shut down. My body was, literally, physically rejecting my career. So I started making a list of things that I thought would be really cool to do, that I love to do, and that I could somehow figure out a way to make a living at.

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It’s not the hours

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Doesn’t being an entrepreneur take as much time? I hear a lot of people saying that they don’t want to be a business owner because of the time that it takes.

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Absolutely. Being an entrepreneur takes as much time, if not more time. But it’s not so much the hours that you put in, as it is how you spend those hours, which determine your satisfaction with what you’re doing. I put in a lot of hours – between writing and running different businesses – but I have control over those hours. I’m a family person so there’s nothing more important to me than having time with my wife and my daughter. So I wrap those business hours around the time that I know I want to spend with my family. I make breakfast and lunch for my daughter. I hang out with her in the morning. I pick her up from school. And then I may work a little bit in the evening after everybody goes to bed. The flip side is that when I wake up, I can’t wait to work. I’m bummed when I can’t work because I love what I do so much. So when that’s how you define work, hours don’t really mean a whole lot anymore. The bigger challenge becomes balancing multiple passions so that you have enough time to intelligently honor whatever your commitments to those passions are.

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Is now the right time?

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Jonathan – it would seem like the objection a lot of people might have – there are times to start a business and there are times not to start a business. Like right now, is this a good time to be a renegade?

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That’s a great question. In my mind, it’s a phenomenal time. Some of the biggest companies that are out there today were started during the last substantial recession. Within any time where there’s economic challenge, very often the people who are willing to take risks, when everybody else is awash in a sea of paralysis, are the people who end up being in a phenomenally better place once we emerge from whatever’s going on. They tend to be really well positioned to move forward aggressively. The challenge with what’s happening now is credit. A lot of people are saying, “Listen, I would be willing to take a risk.” Hundreds of thousands are out of a job. They’re saying, “I can’t go back to that job. If I had access to money, I actually might take the risk but I don’t.” But what’s really interesting is that there is a massive move to creating entrepreneurship online where you can swap work for money. It’s not so much that people don’t have the money anymore because you don’t need a whole lot. It’s that they don’t have the knowledge of what’s capable when you tap the online world. All you need for that is a broadband connection and a little bit of money to get going. You can literally transform a lot of knowledge that you have into monetizable businesses if you know how to do it.

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So if your specialty is marketing, you can create your own brand online. Instead of just having your local clients, now you can have a shot at international clients.

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Yeah. Being online opens up a worldwide market to you – whether it’s marketing or making kooky hats. There may be only 100 people in your town that would support a kooky hat store. But if you open up your market to online, maybe there’s thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands. You also don’t have to pay the rent for a storefront. You’re cutting a massive amount of your fixed overhead. I’ve been an entrepreneur, both online and in the brick-and-mortar world, so I understand the issues of overhead very well from both worlds.

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Learn more about Jonathan at his Career Renegade site.

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Thanks so much for stopping by our site today. Join us next time when we continue our discussion with Jonathan. He gives more great advice for all you career renegades who want to get a business going. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00319-012909.mp3

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Bigg Advice
We recommend that you get a notebook to write down your thoughts and answers to the following questions, Amy.

These things all revolve around one simple theme –

#1 – What did you want to be when you grew up?
Now you may think that’s a silly question to ask at this point in your life, but it’s not. Because it leads to the more important question …

Mary-Lynn wanted to be a singing star. She wanted to be like Cher – up on stage performing in front of an audience with a microphone. Unfortunately, she couldn’t sing!

But today, she does perform in front of an audience with her very own microphone. It’s not exactly what she envisioned as a kid, but the elements are there.

#2 – What classes did you really enjoy?
You probably thrived in these classes. What were they, from grade school all the way up through college? And more importantly …

George loved philosophy – learning how to think logically and debate a subject. He’s used those skills his entire career. He has found that the work that’s most enjoyable to him often has to do with problem-solving.

#3 – What extracurricular activities did you love?
And more importantly, what did you love about that activity?

Mary-Lynn loved music. She loved being in the pep band and going to competitions. These additional benefits were a bonus to learning to play an instrument well. It appealed to her competitive nature and fulfilled her social needs.

#4 – What jobs or roles have given you the greatest satisfaction?
More importantly, what common themes were there?

George has been an entrepreneur and a teacher. As his career as a business owner advanced, he found that teaching and inspiring others was what he really enjoyed. He got great feedback about meetings he conducted. He also got positive reviews from his students. Today, Bigg Success gives him that outlet to share knowledge with others.

#5 – What is, or was, your favorite hobby?
What do you, or did you, do for free?

Mary-Lynn has loved writing since she was a kid. It taps into her creative side. That desire to be creative has guided her throughout her career. She once left a job because it didn’t offer creative freedom. Her need for creative control in her job spills over from her hobby. Being in touch with what you naturally do, even without pay, can help you discover your passion.

So as you ponder these five questions, think about the elements of the activity, rather than the activity itself, to discover your passion.

Thanks, Amy, for sharing your bigg challenge with us. We’re confident you’ll discover your passion soon!

If you have a bigg challenge, e-mail it to us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com What advice do you have for Amy? Click on the Comment link below

Our bigg quote today is by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who said,

So find your passion to uncover your greatness.

Next time, we’ll discuss what to do if working harder isn’t working anymore. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

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Maybe the Rolling Stones were onto something with their song, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. We say that because a new study shows not getting satisfaction is good!

This study, called The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?, was recently published in Perspective on Psychological Science. Participants rated their happiness on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most happy. Not surprisingly, the researchers found that happy people tend to:

• stay married longer

• be healthier

• volunteer more often

• get more favorable reviews at work

• make more money

But the researchers also found that people who rated their happiness level at 10 made significantly less money than those with a happiness level of 8 or 9.

So today, we’ll offer three reasons why less happy people make more money.

#1 – Less happy people respond to changes.
If you’re too happy, you don’t adopt new technologies, new strategies, or new approaches. You’re just fine with the way things are! The problem is that things are changing faster than ever. It’s easy to fall behind.

#2 – Less happy people look for an edge.
When you move past what you know to what you don’t know, you grow personally. That’s what makes life meaningful. So they constantly test their limits, and continually improve, because they’re most comfortable on the edge of their comfort zone.

#3 – Less happy people ask, “What’s next?”
When they reach a goal, they celebrate. They should … they’ve earned it! But then, they set another goal. They look for the next highest mountain to climb. The glory comes from being on top, but the challenge of getting there is the fun part!

How do you get your appetite back?
Think back to when you were first starting out in your career. Do you remember how hungry you were? We don’t mean physically hungry, although that may apply, too! We mean hungry for knowledge, for growth, and for opportunity.

Can you go back to that time in your mind? Can you visualize it as if it were happening right now? That’s where you start – visualize it using ALL of your senses.

Now, with that same sense of hunger, answer this question:

Visualize it, using all your senses. Keep visualizing it until you’re as hungry for this endeavor as you were when you first got started.

Take yourself to another level – for some of you, this may be a level you never thought you would achieve. Congratulations! You’re ready to go for it!

Our bigg quote today comes from Thomas Edison, who said,

“We shall have no better conditions in the future
if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present.”

So don’t worry … be happy! Just don’t be content.

Next time, we’ll ask, “Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?” It’s all about multi-tasking. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed 

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(Image in today’s post by ba1969)