Going Back to Work After 10 Years of Self-Employment: Why It's Not What I Expected (And Why I Think It Might Be the Best Thing I've Done)

After ten years of running my own business—building the New School of Marketing, this podcast, working with clients, creating courses and memberships—I recently did something I genuinely didn't know how to feel about.

I went back to work.

Part-time, at a local high school. And while my business absolutely continues, walking back into an employed role after a decade of complete independence brought up a lot of feelings I wasn't prepared for. Questions I had to sit with. A story I had to rewrite about what success is supposed to look like.

This episode is that story. The honest version. Because I think there are a lot of people out there facing similar crossroads—whether it's going back to employment, pivoting their business, scaling back, or making a choice that doesn't fit neatly into the "build and scale forever" narrative we're all sold. And I want you to hear this clearly: it is not failure. It is growth. And sometimes the bravest thing you can do is say yes to something that surprises you.

Growth doesn't always look the way you planned. Sometimes the most interesting chapter is the one you didn't see coming.

Transcript

Welcome to the new School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie and this is the place where we break down marketing strategies that actually work without the overwhelm. 

Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I live and work on, the Palawa people of lutruwita. I pay my respects to elders past and present and acknowledge the deep connection they have to this land, culture and community.

Now let's dive in and make marketing work for you.

Except today's episode is a personal one.

No marketing frameworks, no tactical advice, no, you know, action steps. At the end, it's just me being honest about something that's been a significant shift in my life recently and something I've been wanting to talk about on on here for a while because I think there are a lot of you who might actually relate to it or who might be facing a similar decision of your own.

A little while ago I went back to work.

Not full time and not because my business failed or because everything fell apart, but I took on a part time marketing coordinator role at a local high school.

After 10 years of being entirely self employed, you know, running my own business, being my own boss, setting my own hours, walking back into an employed role was something I genuinely didn't know how to feel about.

So today I want to talk about that, you know, what it's actually been like, what I've learned, what surprised me and what why, if you're in a similar position or facing a similar decision, why I want you to hear this. It's not failure, it's growth.

And sometimes the bravest thing you can do is choose something that doesn't fit neatly into the story that you had planned for yourself.

Now let me start at the beginning because context matters.

I've been running my own marketing business for over 14 years, with 10 of those years entirely like self employed.

So at the start I had a part time job, I started my business on the side and then after a few years I left that job. And yeah, for the past 10 years I have been in my business full time.

You know, the new school of marketing, this podcast, working with clients, running courses and memberships, doing meta ads for clients all of it is built around school hours, around my family and since we've moved here, around my life here on the northwest coast of Tasmania.

And I love it, I do.

And I'm really proud of what I've built. Like, really, really proud. 10 years of full time self employment is not nothing.

Building something from scratch, sustaining it, growing it, pivoting it when needed, that takes a particular kind of grit and I definitely don't take that for granted.

But the opportunity came up to take on this part time role at the high school and something in me said yes before my brain had even caught up.

And my brain, when it did catch up, I had a lot of questions. You know, what does this mean for my business? What will people think? Does this mean I'm stepping back? Does this mean I've somehow failed at the, you know, self employment dream? Am I supposed to want this?

And I sat with those questions for a while and you know what, the answers that came back, they were much simpler than I actually expected.

It means that my business continues, but in a different form.

And we all know this.

What people think is less important than what feels right for me right now.

I don't see it as stepping back.

I'm seeing it as stepping into something new.

And you know, whether I'm air quotes supposed to want it, that is completely irrelevant. I do want it and that's enough.

Whether it's, you know, supposed to or not, I want it.

And I want to be honest about what I assumed going back to work would feel like because the reality has actually been quite different.

I actually assumed that I would feel constrained. I was really nervous about this.

You know, I'm someone who's been in control of my own schedule for a decade. I set my own hours, I choose my clients, I work in the order that I decide. And I kind of assumed that walking into a structure that someone else had created that I, I would feel suffocated.

And I don't.

And I think the reason is that I chose this structure.

I walked into it voluntarily, like with clear eyes, knowing what I was signing up for and I was not going to do it if it did not work for my life.

And there's a difference between a structure that's imposed and a structure that is chosen.

Like one of them feels like a cage and the other one actually feels like relief.

I also assumed that I would feel like I was going backwards, like I'd somehow regressed, you know, from business owner to employee, from, you know, independence to accountability to someone else.

But here's the thing, I don't actually feel like I'm going backwards at all.

I feel like I've added a dimension, like I've expanded rather than contracted. Like the business is still there.

The membership, the mentoring, the podcast, all of it continues.

I've just added a new layer to what I do, and that layer is teaching me things that I really didn't expect.

And can I tell you what surprised me the most?

The colleagues.

Ten years of working for yourself is wonderful in so many ways, but it's also, and this is something I didn't fully acknowledge until I didn't have it, it's also quite lonely sometimes when you work for yourself, especially from home, the social layer of work, it's not there.

You don't have people to bounce ideas off spontaneously.

You don't have someone, you know, to make a cup of tea with. You don't have the casual conversations that happen when you're just, you know, sharing a space with other humans who are working on things.

And I didn't realize how much I missed that until I had it again.

There is something really energising about being around a team, about being part of something collaborative, about having colleagues, like people with different skills, different perspectives, different ways of approaching problems and getting to work alongside them.

And in a school environment specifically, there's this incredible energy that I wasn't prepared for.

Like young people everywhere, a constant sense of purpose and momentum and a community that is really, genuinely trying to do something meaningful.

And it's. It's just hard not to be moved by that.

I have found myself coming home from work days feeling energized in a way that's different from how I feel after, you know, a day of deep solo work.

Not, like, better, but just different.

And it's.

It's a kind of energy I didn't know that I was missing.

And I want to talk about something else, because this is the part I really want to talk about,

because it's been the biggest surprise of all.

Going back into an employed role after 10 years has put me in a position I haven't been in for a long time.

And that is beginner's mind.

When you've been running your own business for a decade, you can start to move through your work on a, you know, kind of automatic pilot. But you know your stuff. Like, I know my stuff. You know your systems, you know your clients, you know what they need.

And there is a certain comfort in that.

But there's also a subtle stagnation that can creep in when you're not careful, you stop being challenged in the way that creates real growth and walking into a new role, a new environment, a new team.

Suddenly I'm like learning again in a really active, full body way.

I'm coming across systems I haven't used before.

I'm navigating organizational dynamics that I've forgotten existed. I'm applying my marketing expertise in a context that's completely different from running an online business.

And that contrast is showing me things about my own knowledge that I really couldn't see from inside my own world. You know, it's how you can't read the label from inside the jar.

Yeah, like that.

It's, it's like, you know, when you teach something to someone else, you often understand it more deeply yourself.

That's been happening for me constantly. Like applying marketing thinking to an educational institution, explaining my reasoning to colleagues who may not have a marketing background, adapting my approach to like a completely different audience.

It's making me a better marketer.

Not in spite of the context being different, but because of it.

I've also been reminded of something really important about professional environments.

There is so much you can learn from the way other people work.

You know, their habits, their approaches, their ways of solving problems. Like when you're self employed, your only reference point is yourself.

And while that has value, it also has limits.

So being around other professionals again has been in a way quietly and consistently expanding. How I think now I want to address something because some of you might be wondering, you know, what's happening with your business.

My business hasn't disappeared, it's changed shape and I actually think it's changed for the better.

I've always believed in building a business that works around your life and not the other way around.

You know, a business that has boundaries, that is sustainable, that doesn't require you to hustle yourself into the ground, you know, to keep it alive. And if I'm honest, the version of my business I've been building these past few years has been moving towards that. You know, the membership, the group programs, the more leveraged ways of helping people rather than doing everything one to one.

So taking on this part time role has actually kind of accelerated that.

Because my business now needs to work without me being in it every moment.

Which means the systems I'd been meaning to build are now non negotiable.

You know, the content batching, the email automations, the membership content, all of it needs to be properly systemised.

And that's made my business more resilient and more sustainable than it was before.

So the membership continues, the mentoring continues, the podcast clearly continues.

Still, I work with clients, I'm still creating content. I'm still absolutely committed to helping business owners with their marketing.

I've just found a way to do that alongside something that's bringing a different kind of fulfillment into my professional life.

And I think that's allowed, actually.

I think we're allowed to want more than one thing, to be good at more than one thing, to build a professional life that has multiple dimensions rather than a singular focus.

So what does that mean for me as a person?

And this is something that I want to share with you, because I think this is something that took me the longest to admit to myself, and that is that I needed this.

Not because my business was failing, not because I was in some sort of crisis, but because I had quietly and slowly started to kind of shrink a little. I was comfortable. I was in my zone.

And comfort, when it goes on long enough without a challenge, it starts to feel a little flat.

And that's where I was at.

I needed to be in a room where I didn't know everything.

I needed to be the new person again.

I needed to navigate unfamiliar territory, to make mistakes in a new context, to figure things out as I went, you know, in a way that I hadn't needed to in a long time.

And I needed community, like a real physical, daily community, the kind that comes from sharing a space with people who are working towards something together.

There's something about stepping into something new, especially something that scares you a little.

Just something about that that reawakens parts of yourself that have been quietly, like, just sitting there, dormant.

I feel more curious than I have in a while. I feel more energized and I feel more connected.

I feel like myself, but in a slightly expanded version, if that makes sense.

Like, I've taken up a little more space than I was before.

So if you're listening to this and you're in a similar position, if you're self employed and considering going back to work in some capacity, or. Or if you're employed and wondering whether to start a business, or if you're at any kind of, you know, crossroads between two versions of your professional life, I want to say something to you.

The story we tell about what success looks like in business is very narrow.

It goes in one direction.

You know, start small, build big, scale up, achieve financial freedom, and never answer to anyone again.

And if you deviate from that story, you know, if you take a step that doesn't fit neatly into that trajectory, it can feel like failure, like. Like you're admitting defeat, like you couldn't hack it.

But that story is just one story, and it's not even a particularly interesting one.

The more interesting story, the way I'm living right now is, is the one where you keep asking yourself, what do I actually need right now?

And you keep being honest.

Honest enough to answer that to yourself, even when the answer surprises you and even when it doesn't fit the plan, and even when you have to explain it to people who don't quite understand.

Because I've been there. Trust me, going back to work after 10 years of self employment, it's not failure, it's a choice.

Like, it's just another chapter.

It's growth in a direction that I didn't plan for, but I am so, so grateful for.

I do believe in things working out for reasons, you know, things happening for a reason.

And this is my choice.

This is another chapter for me.

Who knows what I'll be doing in 10 years? I don't know.

But this is where I want to be right now.

And wherever you are in your journey, like, whether you're building something from scratch, whether you're pivoting something you know that exists, whether you're stepping into something new or maybe stepping back from something that no longer fits, I want you to know that none of those things are failure.

They're just different versions of you figuring out what you need and being brave enough to pursue it. That's not. Not weakness, that is wisdom.

Now, before I wrap up, I want to be really transparent with you about what this means for the podcast and for the work I do here.

This podcast continues, the membership continues.

My commitment to helping business owners with their marketing is as strong as it's ever been. Honestly, stronger because I'm bringing, you know, a fresh perspective and learning new things.

So adding new things into everything I create.

The episodes might not come out as frequently as I'd like, you know, while I'm settling in and juggling all the things.

And I really appreciate your patience with it, but the content I do create is going to be better for this experience.

I'm more connected to the real world, you know, the real world of work and the real world of business than I've been in a while.

And that can only be good for what I bring you here.

I'm also continuing to take on a small number of mentoring clients and, of course, doing what I do best through the membership.

And if you're not already in the membership, it's still the best way to work with me regularly, and I'd love to have you in there.

So there you have it. The honest version of what's been happening in my world and why I think it's actually one of the best decisions I've made, even though I had my reservations at the start.

So if you're at a crossroads of your own, I hope this helps even a little.

Not because my situation is the same as yours, but maybe because it gives you permission to make the unconventional choice.

You know, the one that doesn't fit the story, the one that scares you, the one that makes you a new person, the new person in the room again.

Because being new, being a beginner, it's not a step backwards. It's actually where growth lives and you're allowed to keep growing in whatever direction feels true to you.

I would genuinely love to hear from you on this one.

You know, if you're navigating something similar or if this episode resonated, hit reply to my latest email or DM me on Instagram. I really, I would love to know this. I read everything and I love hearing from you.

And if you've been following along on this journey and you'd like to support the show, the best thing you can do are to subscribe, to share the episode with someone who might need to hear it, or to leave a review.

It means so much to me and I am grateful for every single one of you who shows up here.

Thank you so much for tuning into the new School of Marketing podcast. Now remember,

growth doesn't always look the way you planned.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to say yes to something that actually surprises you. It's crazy what happens. I'm Bianca McKenzie and I'll catch you in the next episode.

Until then, keep making marketing work for you in whatever form that takes right now.