Employee to Entrepreneur - Part 2
Continued from Part 1:
Come that first day, March 1, 2019 where I revamped the website to include and to say voiceover, social media, things like that, and it just started. So that transition is something that a lot of people are afraid to do. I didn't wake up one morning and say I'm going to just quit and go start my new thing, I would say that I morphed into it. Everybody does things in their head a different way, some people never do what they really want to do. I hear stories of 90-year-olds and 95-year-olds, and they start talking about regret for the things they never tried to do or never did in their lives because they were too afraid of failing, too afraid of not being safe.
A lot of people stay in jobs they don't like for a long time because they're afraid, really is what it is that, in your mind, maybe you can think of it this way, if you can replace the income that you were making while you were working for someone else, then what's the difference? This would include health insurance and anything else. So if you can replace that income, what is the real difference? There really isn't any when you think about it. You'll also be waking up every morning and doing something you like. So it's something that you have a passion for. That's what happens now every day with Chris Jones Media.
Since that first day, March 1, 2019, I've enjoyed it. I wake up every day full of excitement. What's going to happen today? Set some goals for the day and just move forward. But that transition is something that a lot of people just never do. I would encourage you that if you're thinking about it, and Gary V says this all the time when he has all these live shows, and he goes, "Well, what's stopping you? Are you afraid your parents aren't going to like it? Are you afraid of what other people think, anybody would think?" Some of them say, "Yeah. I mean, my mom says this," or "My friend says that."
Are your friends, are your parents even living your life? If you do what they will think you should do, you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life. You'll be extremely unhappy. You'll wish you had done it at some point. So, for me, I morphed into it. March 1, 2019, I wake up, and hey, I'm not going to that sales meeting today. That was a Friday, I think it was. I didn't have to go to that meeting. I'm like, let's start this new thing. I immediately got on the internet on my website, chrisjonesmedia.com, and I said, well, let's make this thing look a lot different. Go on social media and announce everything, and start this new thing. I have a bunch of clients now, if you look at the website, and some really good Google reviews, Facebook reviews, things like that.
We're building our presence. We continue to build our presence on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is where really is at for business. But I do have Facebook Business. I have Instagram, and Twitter even, Chris Jones Media. Don't underestimate Twitter, it's not just for political stuff. It works. Also, TikTok, so I'm on there too. To just have this presentation is just to talk about that transition. I woke up on March 1, 2019 with a renewed sense of purpose, a renewed sense of, wow, this is what it can really be, and I can enjoy waking up in the morning. I have a support system too. It is very important that you have a support system. In my case, my wife says, "You need to do this, you need to just full speed ahead." So, I did, I did.
I didn't actually quit the last position, but it was a mutual parting, put it that way. It was all on friendly terms, and I'm still friends with them. I see them once in a while, hit them up on social media. My advice, I suppose, would be to just do it. Look yourself in the mirror and say, am I happy? Do I like what's going on in my life right now? If you don't like what you're doing, if you do the TGIF thing, Thank God it's Friday, wow, now I got the weekend, which implies really that the weekend is like your relief from the week. A lot of people think that way, and they go to their 9:00 to 5:00, or 7:00 to 3:00, or whatever it is, or 6:00 to 6:00 in some cases, and just don't like it. I mean, then they come home and they're miserable sometimes. You're never happy that way.
You have your hobbies, and the weekends are cool, and you got the family. But then there's that Monday, you go back to Monday and Monday is your least favorite day of the week. Friday is your favorite. If you could make Monday your favorite day of the week, you're ready to get up and go and do your job, a job is the wrong word, but attack your passion would be a better way to put it, if you can't wait to get up on Monday and do that, then you got it made. That's what I do every day of the week now. I love working in Adobe Premiere Pro. I love working on the websites. I love voiceover. Voiceover is my passion because of my background in radio. When I woke up on March 1, 2019, working for myself with Chris Jones Media, I'm like, my voice is going to do it. It's going to do it for me. It did it for a long time in radio. But in my case, radio was not the end all be all.
I know some of the people I knew in radio back in the '80s, '90s still doing radio, and they sound great. It just didn't work. I stopped doing radio in the early '90s, and I went into sales and did that sort of thing. At that point, you never really know when you're ready. I saw an evolution going on from radio to sales of various things, electronics appliances, and two or three different places, and the actually delivery of and assemblage of appliances in people's homes with a friend of mine that we did that for a while. And then I was a telemarketer. I also worked at a newspaper in the prepress area back when this particular paper had a press. It's broken down now. The whole newspaper industry is something I could really talk about on another whole video, and where it's headed, and where it's at, and all of that.
So I did that for a while, and that evolved into the automobile business. The automobile business is what I left February 28, 2019. Woke up on March 1, 2019 and said, this is it, this is the new thing, chrisjonesmedia.com. Chris Jones Media on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, all of that. Thank you for watching. I guess my advice, or my thing to say to you is, pursue your passion because if you don't, you're going to hate yourself. The longer you don't pursue your passion, the worse you'll feel.
Well, Chris, why didn't you just quit selling cars and go do your own thing? There were some thoughts about it, but that's one of those things, and I was one of the ones. I can relate to anybody who thinks this. I was one of the ones who was, gee, I got to go make this money every month. I got to sell so many cars or they'll let me go. Well, that's what happened. But you know what? Things happen for a reason. We're ready when we feel we're ready. When we feel we're ready, it happens. Things happen for a reason. My wife fully supports what I'm doing. I support what she's doing, and she's working. In her mind, she would like to be doing something else too. She loves what she's doing now, actually. So, there's a lot going on there. That's another family dynamic. So every situation is different.
I would say, look in words towards yourself, go from there. I would invite some comments on this, your story. If you're an entrepreneur, your story, how things are going for you, how you started. I would love to hear your comments on that. Thank you very much.