"Quit your 9-5 and go all in on your business!"

If you’ve been around X for long or just online in general, you’ve probably heard this.

And it’s probably one of the worst pieces of advice I’ve ever heard.

Here’s why:

Experience

A major part of personal branding (and business) relies on you bringing external expertise to the market.

If you don’t have anything in your life directly feeding into your experience, how will you develop the skills necessary to help people?

I’m part of the leadership team of a small consulting firm based in the UK and head of a small team of 4 consultants.

My daily work involves creating marketing campaigns, writing copy, setting up automations, nurturing leads, meeting with clients, analysing performance of existing campaigns, managing a small team of junior execs, onboarding new clients, creating business strategy, etc

This gives me a HUGE advantage over other beginners in the X content/coaching space.

I tried doing this X (then twitter) stuff straight out of uni and it was hard man…

Now a few years later after having some professional experience, it’s an absolute breeze; genuinely.

I don’t think twice about jumping onto a call with people and offering help.

I don’t struggle to build offers or generate leads.

I get paid to learn and share my lessons online via this newsletter for basically FREE.

I’m so glad I decided to pursue a career first to get the skills because now I enter the market with the confidence to make a difference. I don’t need to fake it till I make it because I’ve already traveled the path.

Security

Look - I get it…

Hunting for your own food. The excitement of building your own thing. I get it. Trust me I do.

But it’s hard to really appreciate the stress and practicality associated with having to sell every month just to pay bills. You don’t understand until you’ve tried it. 

Unless you’re a young, single guy living with his parents and have basically zero expenses, it’s just not an option. Even then - it might not be the best path for you.

Fortunately there are other ways to get there.

If you can find the right career in your 20s (that allows for progression), you can have all of the benefits of having a business along with the security that comes with a 9-5.

Not only do I get paid for building foundational career skills (copywriting, sales, relationship management, etc), I get the opportunity to make genuinely impactful decisions in the business and see first-hand how to turn out.

I get to learn from someone else’s mistakes and not pay the price myself.

Make your beginner mistakes in someone else’s business first and save yourself the hassle later on.

Necessity

Do you even need to quit your 9-5 to make your business work in the short-term?

I don’t see people even talking about this.

Who said you even need to quit your 9-5 in the first place?

I can quite happily grow my business with 1-2 hours a day of work on weekdays and 4-6 hours on a Saturday; especially using tools like Beehiiv to schedule my newsletters.

So why not just do that alongside my job?

The answer is that there is no reason why you can’t do that. That’s exactly what I do. 

I figure out ways to make it work that way, and design my business from the bottom up to make it so.

We love to romanticise the idea of going all in and putting all the chips on the table, but the more I learn about what’s possible with the internet (digital leverage, creator economy, etc), the more I question the legitimacy of that notion.

Working a 9-5 is hard. It’s difficult work and even harder to then work 5-9 to build your dream.

But this is the journey that all people go through in the beginning.

Know that it's not forever. 

It’s just the season of life that you find yourself in.

So instead of resisting that, I’ve decided to embrace the 9-5 as long as it suits me for the next few years.

I reject the propaganda from the fake gurus.

I’m building my own journey.

I’m a proud 9-5er - at least for the time being.

And perhaps you should be too.

If you think that sounds good and you have less than 200 followers on X and want to know how to grow your profile to 500+ the next 1-3 months, send me a DM on X for a free consultation.

I won’t offer these consultations for free forever, so if you think you might benefit, let me know now by DMing me saying you came from this newsletter.