How much are you willing to risk to further your small business?

“What do you believe about who you are? About your capabilities? When was the last time you trusted yourself enough to test them?” – Gina Greenlee

Running a small business? There comes a time when you need to make a decision. Is this going to be a hobby to supplement my regular employment salary? Or am I going to scale it up to become my main income?

I love the quote above from Gina Greenlee (author, teacher, writer, speaker & coach) as I believe that Gina captures the questions we need to be asking ourselves so that we can get the inspiration we need to step outside of our comfort zone and achieve our dreams - which is exactly what I did!

I've made the decision to give up my job as a Higher Level Teaching Assistant in a Primary School to concentrate on running Bare Cards as a full-time business. I've spent 20 years supporting and mentoring young children with their mental health and well-being,  teaching them how to manage emotions and guiding them through the tricky times in their little lives. There's been so many rewarding highs and also some heartbreaking lows!

Here's how I answered Gina's questions to come to the decision to leave education to build my small business:

What do you believe about who you are? 

I know I'm a caring person. I care about fairness. I care about equality. I care about inclusivity. I care about people's happiness and about their interactions with each other. I care about children and their futures, which means that I also care about the environment. That's what Bare Cards is all about; protecting our environment for the future generations, creating a more sustainable greetings card industry that uses less single-use paper waste and therefore, less plastic cello-wrap packaging.

I still care about the children that I work with and it's the hardest decision to leave them - there's never a good time to leave any school. There's always children that you know you are helping and could continue to help and there would be more children next year, and the year after that! So you need to be brave, know that there will be other amazing teachers that will step into your shoes and ensure that those children will continue to be supported (doesn't mean I won't cry loads on the last day of term though!) :(

I believe that I can channel this passion into making this company work.

About your capabilities?

I know I'm a confident person. I guess I owe this to my parents and my upbringing. I've been taught to be resilient, to be true to your beliefs and be able to be assertive in explaining them to others. 

I know I'm a hard working person. There's nothing I love more than the feeling of satisfaction after a hard days work - knowing that you've achieved something that day (and can reward yourself with an evening boxset binge with a glass of wine!). I'm also one of those lucky people in life that actually enjoys learning. I want to learn and have so much learning to do when it comes to running my own business. I'm looking forward to being able to attend conferences and seminars, so that I can build my network and gain experience from other business owners.

Hopefully, I'll continue to be able to cope with the highs and lows of entrepreneurship! I get inspiration and encouragement from reading the many social media posts from the multi-millionaires telling you not to give up, go with the flow, take the criticisms and evolve with them! As is normal, I get despondent when I get a knock back (I might even have a cry in the car!) but, so far, I've bounced back pretty quick and moved on to the next target.

When was the last time you trusted yourself enough to test them?

I'm 51 years old (how did that happen?), not a spring chicken, and certainly not the optimum age to up sticks, change career and start to grow a successful business! But I do know that now is the right time to try. I know that I have to try now, because if i don't, I'll always be asking myself "What if...?"

I'm also lucky enough to have the backing of a husband who is not only happy to support me in this venture, but is also the main reason that I want to do this! It was him that had the vision for this invention, him that spent hours researching the concept, him that secured a UK patent and him that continues to work so that I can hopefully make his dream come true! His passion that is now my passion! 

I trust in this concept. I know it will reduce the amount of paper that ends up in landfill. I know that is important to the sustainability of the greetings card industry.

So, I'm leaving school on 23rd July 2025 to work on this full time! I'll miss the children but I know that we'll always regret not giving this a real chance and I thank my lucky stars that I've been given the opportunity to try!

How much are you willing to risk to further your small business?