Reader,

Here's a real-time lesson:

• Never assume what you intend to say will land 100% accurately with your recipients.

Test, test, test with your audience - Too many people spend months working on an offer they never tested with real people!

Be swift in your apology and clarify when misunderstanding happen.

Mistakes and misunderstanding happen, act swiftly and maintain open and transparent communication with your audience so you never lose their trust in you!

I sent the email below earlier this morning.

Then received messages from my community congratulating me on becoming a full-time boss.

I re-read my email and realized, oh my, it did come across that way - like I've quit my job!

No, I haven't quit my 9-5 job :)

What I meant was I removed all the past companies I worked for as an employee in my LinkedIn profile.

I put them all under 1 umbrella of the company of me, 'Sharon Singh Sidhu'.

It's a psychological retirement.

But it's helped me shift my focus and commitment towards working on my own brand, under my own company.

This means:

• I'll never take a job if it takes me away from this focus of growing my company.
• My job is just another income stream while I grow even more streams.
• I no longer identify solely as an employee and the associated title.

Previously, my idea of growing a career was solely through employment.

Now, it's what kind of work I choose to fill my time with.

I'm sorry if I misled anyone!

Have a good week!

Here's that earlier email (Despite tweaking a few words after it went out, it still created some misunderstanding!)👇

Yes, that's right.

I retired my corporate career by removing my job titles on LinkedIn and put them under the umbrella of the 'Sharon Singh Sidhu' company.

And it felt scary to do that!

Funny how attached we get to our job titles and the companies we've worked at.

Although I've had side gigs for almost a decade now, it felt like I didn't fully commit to it.

• I was always hiding in the shadows, lurking.
• I only talked about my business in safe spaces - where I knew no one from work would know me.
• I watered down my message, because I felt I wasn't 'expert' and 'qualified' enough to talk about it.

But when I turned 50 this year, I decided to gift myself my childhood dream of being my own boss.

This simple act of detaching from my past corporate identity was a concrete and psychological step to commit to this dream from now on.

I 'came out' and started getting visible on LinkedIn.

• Sharing my thoughts and opinions about making the transition from employee to entrepreneur.
• Engaging and inviting like-minded women to conversations and Zoom calls.
• Not caring so much if people at work saw what I was doing online.

If you're feeling like you're running on a hamster wheel in the rat race, and feeling like something's off, take a moment.

Pause and ask yourself:

• Is what you're doing now truly important to you?
• Will it get you to where you want to go?
• Really?

If it will, by all means, continue.

But if it's starting to feel a little 'off', like something's missing, it's an indication it might be time to reflect and reassess.

• What do you really want?
• Is what you're doing helping you get there?
• What else could you be doing to get to where you want to go?

My grandma lived until 100 and my mom looks 60 even though she's 77.

If I'm lucky, I'll have another 25-30 years of life left - that's enough to have a whole other career!

So I'm grabbing it by the horns to do what truly matters, helps me get to where I really want to go, and makes me feel alive!

I hope you are too.

Have a great Sunday and week ahead.

Sharon