Your Job Does Not Cancel Your Business {Ep 234}

Keeping your day job while building your business can feel like you’re standing in an in-between space where nothing “counts” until you quit. I'm calling that out. If you’re growing a business, launching a startup, or trying to start a business while working full time, your job is not proof you’re not serious. It can be the very structure that makes your entrepreneurship sustainable.

I talk about the real pressure behind the double life. The mental switching between employee mode and business owner mode, the hidden emotional load, and why adrenaline is a terrible long-term operating system. When your brain is split all day, it’s easy to believe you’re falling behind even while you’re building steadily. I share a calmer way to think about timing, seasons, and progress, plus simple routines that help you transition so you can show up with more clarity and less urgency.

I also get honest about the loud online messaging that pushes people to “go all in” no matter their finances. With cost of living rising, that advice can be reckless. Your job does not cancel your business, and it doesn’t dilute your identity either. If you’ve registered the name, bought the domain, created the offer, or kept showing up in the messy middle, your business is already real.

If this helped you breathe a little easier, subscribe, share the episode with a friend building a side business, and leave a review so more employed entrepreneurs can find it. What part of building while employed are you navigating right now?

Hello and Welcome to The Aligned Path with Darleen
My name is Darleen and I support business women to have a Heartfelt Connection to their Business through working with their intuition.

You love your business as it has all started coming together and now you understand that Mindset, Spirituality and Intuition are just as important as the logical parts of business. When you work with your intuition in business you can make sound business decisions that you have confidence in; become more confident in yourself as a business woman; and have the ability to say no to things and people that are not aligned.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Welcome. This episode is going to hit really hard for quite a few excuse me, quite a few people. And you can see that even I struggle a bit with this at times. I want to talk about how having a job doesn't cancel your business. When we have a job, there's this quiet pressure that a lot of us can carry when you're actually building something of your own while still working a job. Like somehow you're not allowed to call yourself a business owner yet. Like it only counts once the job is gone. And like the in-between somehow makes

Why A Job Still Fits

SPEAKER_00 1:27

it less real. That space you're in right now isn't a contract contraindication, contraction, I can't say. It's not it's not a problem. It's actually part of the foundation. And the truth is it is far more common, a far more common starting point than most people will actually want to admit. This is a phase where you're building your beautiful business. And I really want to emphasize how important it is for you to let go of that shame that you may feel around having a job and growing a business. When you're building a business while you still work, it doesn't take away from the business. It often makes it possible in the first place, the first place, especially in those early stages. That income that you're getting gives you breathing room. And this means that your decisions can come from clarity instead of urgency or fear. And even if it doesn't feel glamorous, it's often the most stable way to build something that actually lasts. Even when that part makes sense logically, the emotional load often shows up somewhere else, somewhere else entirely. And there is an emotional load when we've got a business and we have a job as well. And there's real pressure in how both of these roles overlap. The hardest part usually isn't the workload itself, but the constant mental switching between two very different roles. Now, when I started my business, I was still working in the medical field. You can imagine how that worked for me. I ran on adrenaline when I was in the medical field. What did I think I needed to do when I was working on my business? Run on adrenaline. Well, that doesn't work.

The Mental Switching Trap

SPEAKER_00 3:58

And that's where you need to learn how to switch that mental load. You want to switch, you know, between your job and then running your beautiful business. And when you start developing routines on how to actually do that, things will become easier. Not because you're doing too much, but because your mind never fully is in one or the other. It's never fully at your job or it's never fully in the business. You're always thinking of one or the other when you're working on one or the other. When this happens, it can quietly start to feel like you're falling behind. There is no such thing as falling behind. Everything has a season, everything has timing. And you might think you're falling behind, even when you're actually building steadily. This is where stopping, this is where pausing, this is where reflection is good. When you feel like you're falling behind, this is where things can get tricky. Because the overlap can start to change the story you tell yourself about what is actually happening. And you're going to have a mindset shift when you start to stop listening to other people. You'll stop listening to coaches that are telling you you're doing the wrong thing by having a job, that you're not serious about your business because you've got a job, you blah. There's just so much out there. And you can see if you're watching, you can see I'm I'm rubbing my head in frustration because I am frustrated over those so-called coaches that think you have to let go of a job and go all in. The reality is at the moment we are living in a world where expenses have gone through the roof, food is expensive. If you're in Australia, petrol went

Reject The Quit Your Job Noise

SPEAKER_00 6:18

crazy. And I mean, really crazy. And I mean, for a lot of people, that means they are not taking trips that they would normally take. And that puts a stress on you. That's why if you've got a job and you're building a business, let go of the shame of it. Let go. Your job is not a measure of how serious you are about your business. I'm getting teary about this because it really does frustrate me when coaches and that say something. I want to say this again. Your job is not a measure of how serious you are about your business, it's simply part of your current structure. And if you continue to have a job and run your business and you do it for 10 years, I want you to embrace that. Embrace that because if that works for you, then do it. I want you to do it. Your business doesn't become real at some future milestone. It's already real in the way you are showing up for it now. You gave birth to it, you gave it a name, you created, you registered your business name, you maybe even got a domain name. Like you went out and got the domain name. All of that makes your business real. And you don't need to wait until everything lines up perfectly before you can own the identity of being a business owner. What you're building counts, even in the messy middle, especially there, because that's where most things are actually formed.

Claim The Business Owner Identity

SPEAKER_00 8:11

And again, I want to emphasize having a job does not cancel out your business. In fact, it may even make it so much better because you may have some extra money to put into, you know, hire certain people to help you get your business going. Let go of the shame. Stop listening to coaches, mentors, people on social media that talk about having a business is I mean having a job is wrong and anything like that. I want you to unfollow those people, block them if necessary, especially if their comments are nasty. I've really I've one of the biggest things I've heard is you're not serious about your business because you've got a job. Your business will go nowhere because you've got a job. You know, like let go of those people. You don't need to listen, and I'm gonna say, you know, you don't need to listen to that crap. It is absolute crap. Remember, this is your business,

Unfollow Toxic Advice And Gatekeeping

SPEAKER_00 9:16

and you get to run it your way and in your time. It's your business, not theirs. They might be a coach, but that doesn't make them a great coach. A great coach will support you, will listen to you, and will reflect things back so you have huge awareness. They will not tell you what to do unless you're specifically getting a coach maybe for Facebook ads or a coach that's going to help you with maybe YouTube or something like that. That's a bit different. They'll tell you what to do. You still have the right to turn around and say no, that doesn't feel right. You know, you still got that. And just to learn all of this properly, you don't need to rush out of your job to prove anything, you don't need to compress your business into the scraps of your time to justify it either. This phase is an integration. Two things existing at once, well, something new quietly forms in the background. And if it feels slow at times, that doesn't mean it's not working. It usually just means it's building something that actually has weight to it. Again, stop listening to coaches or anyone that tells you that having a job and running your business is wrong. Thank you so much for watching and listening, for liking, sharing, commenting, subscribing. All of that that really supports me as a sports business owner. I truly, truly appreciate

Integration Takes Time And Weight

SPEAKER_00 10:57

it. Thank you and wishing you a wonderful day wherever you are in this gorgeous world.