What really happens after you quit your job to start a business? Alex McCarthy shares the messy, unexpected middle between leaving the “safe” path and building a business — and life — that actually fits YOU.

 

Should I Quit My Job to Start a Business? What Nobody Tells You…and how to build it YOUR way.

 

Everyone loves the entrepreneur story of “I quit my job to start a business” but not everyone shares the emotional journey that comes with becoming an entrepreneur.

Here’s the part we don’t talk about enough: sometimes you leave the wrong path before you know exactly what the right one looks like.

That’s what happened to Alex McCarthy.

 

 

After a career in export sales — including her claim to fame of selling over a million pounds of green bananas (love that!) — Alex knew the path she was on wasn’t the one she wanted long-term. So she left, bought a one-way ticket to Asia and started figuring out what she actually wanted work and life to look like.

What came next wasn’t a perfectly packaged entrepreneur story.

It was travel. Meeting digital nomads. Using her existing network. Pitching herself before she felt completely ready. A former employer unexpectedly becoming her first client.

And eventually turning down the opportunity to return to her old job WITH A PROMOTION, because she wanted to gives this whole entrepreneurship thing a try!

We get into the reality of your first year of business, finding those first clients, making decisions without knowing exactly where they’ll lead, and building a business around your lifestyle instead of creating another job you eventually want to escape from.

 

What you’ll learn:

• What actually happens after you quit your job to start a business — especially when you don’t have the perfect plan
• How Alex found her first client by using the network she already had
• The less glamorous reality of navigating your first year of business
  
• Why Alex batched an entire year of podcast episodes while pregnant to stay visible without needing to constantly show up online
• How to start building a business around your lifestyle, values and version of success

 

 

Listen For…

 

TIMESTAMPS

• 03:12 — Why Alex Quit Her Job Without a Business Plan
• 07:08 — Leaving Corporate Life and Discovering Digital Nomad Entrepreneurship
• 10:18 — How Alex Found Her First Client and Started Her Business
• 14:01 — Finding Clients in Your First Year of Business
• 21:45 — Building a Business Around Your Lifestyle and Values

 

MORE ABOUT ALEX MCCARTHY

Alex McCarthy is a business coach and podcast host of My Kind of Business, where she helps solo business owners and small teams build businesses that fit their lives — not the other way around.

Her approach is rooted in freedom, creativity and a personal definition of success — especially useful when you’re in those first few years of business and everyone else’s version of “making it” starts to cloud out what YOU want.

 

CONNECT WITH ALEX MCCARTHY

Website: https://www.alexmccarthycoaching.com/
Podcast: My Kind of Business

 

 

LISTEN TO NEXT:
 The Biggest Mind F*ck of My Life | Leaving My Job to Start a Business 

 

RESOURCES
Instagram:@chardetryel
Listen to the Secrets to Standing Out Private Podcast

 

 

 

MORE ABOUT THIS FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR PODCAST EPISODE

 

“Start with your values and start with you and what’s important to you. What type of life do you want to lead?” – Alex McCarthy

 

• Should I Quit My Job to Start a Business?
• Your First Year of Business Won’t Follow the Plan
• Your First Clients May Already Know You
• Building a Business Around Your Lifestyle, Not Someone Else’s
• You Don’t Need Confidence to Back Yourself

 

 

Should I Quit My Job to Start a Business If I Don’t Have It All Figured Out?

What if the thing keeping you in your job isn’t that you want to stay…but the belief that you’re supposed to know exactly what comes next before you’re allowed to leave?

Business coach Alex McCarthy remembers reaching a point in her successful export sales career when everything looked right from the outside. Promotions. Responsibility. More than a million pounds in green banana sales (yes, really). Yet underneath all of that was a much quieter realization: “I don’t feel like this is it for me.”

Maybe you know that feeling.

You’re doing well. You’ve followed the sensible path. Perhaps people around you would even be confused if you walked away. But something feels slightly off—and no amount of telling yourself you should be grateful seems to make it fit.

For Alex, the realization came before the plan: “I have no idea what I’m meant to be doing, but I at least know this space here is…not for me.”

And perhaps that’s the part nobody talks about enough when you’re asking, Should I quit my job to start a business?

Sometimes knowing what you don’t want arrives before knowing exactly what you do.

 

You Might Not Need a Perfect Plan. You Need Enough Space to Hear Yourself.

There’s plenty of sensible advice about leaving a job. Build your business on the side. Save a certain amount. Replace your salary first. Know your niche. Have clients waiting.

For some people, that absolutely makes sense.

Alex is careful to point out that her circumstances gave her freedom to make a decision that might not be available to everyone: “It’s subject to your individual situation.”

But there’s another question worth asking.

How much mental and emotional capacity does your current life leave you to imagine a different one?

When Alex was still answering her work Blackberry late at night, she was giving enormous amounts of herself to somebody else’s business. Leaving created something she hadn’t been able to manufacture around the edges: space.

As I put it in our conversation, when “all of your mental and emotional capital is in someone else’s business,” it can become incredibly difficult to work out what you want to create for yourself.

That doesn’t mean “quit tomorrow.”

It means the answer to Should I quit my job to start a business? may involve more than a spreadsheet. Your financial reality matters. So do your responsibilities. But your capacity, values and sense of possibility belong in that conversation too.

 

The Career You Leave May Have Been Preparing You for Business

Here’s one of the sneakiest beliefs women entrepreneurs carry into their first year of business: I’m starting from zero.

You probably aren’t.

Alex didn’t leave export sales with a shiny entrepreneurial toolkit labeled Future Business Owner. Yet looking back, she could see how much that career had taught her: “how to talk to somebody on the phone, via email, how to manage their expectations.”

Sales. Marketing. Communication. Client relationships. Problem-solving.

The job that wasn’t right for her future still contributed to it.

That matters if you’ve been Googling “I left my job to start a business” stories and comparing yourself to founders who seem to have arrived fully formed.

Your previous career isn’t necessarily wasted time. Your weird collection of skills isn’t irrelevant. Even the experiences you’re desperate to move beyond may become part of your advantage.

The Transferable Capital Framework

Before you decide you’re underqualified to start, look at the capital you already carry.

Skill capital: What can you already do well?

Relationship capital: Who already knows and trusts you?

Experience capital: What have previous jobs taught you about people, problems and industries?

Self-knowledge capital: What have those experiences taught you about how you don’t want to work?

Alex’s story shows all four in action. She didn’t suddenly acquire everything she needed after leaving employment. Much of it was already there.

As she puts it: “I had the skills. I didn’t have the confidence at the time.”

That distinction is enormous.

 

Your First Year of Business Might Begin With Who Already Knows You

One of my favorite moments in Alex’s story has nothing to do with building an audience.

No viral Reel. No enormous email list. No elaborate funnel appearing from the heavens.

Her first client came from a relationship she already had. Later, as she looked for more business, she used her personal network.

Her reminder is beautifully simple: “We underestimate the power of the connections we already have.”

That’s especially relevant in your first year of business, when it’s easy to believe visibility means getting thousands of strangers to notice you.

It doesn’t always.

Alex says, “I don’t have an Instagram account. I don’t have an email list. No one knows about my business. People know you.”

Read that last bit again.

People know you.

Your first opportunities may come through people who have already seen how you think, work, communicate or solve problems. That’s not cheating. That’s relationship capital.

Of course, using it can feel horribly vulnerable.

Alex remembers how uncomfortable it felt to tell people what she was doing, particularly when people close to her didn’t fully understand this new direction. She describes having to “stand up for yourself” while the business was still in its infancy.

That may be one of the least glamorous skills of entrepreneurship: being willing to say this is what I do now before you have years of evidence to make the sentence feel safe.

 

Sometimes the Hardest Decision Comes After You Quit

You might imagine that once you quit your corporate job or leave employment, the scary decision is over.

Cute.

Sometimes life offers you the old certainty again—except this time with a much nicer bow around it.

Just as Alex was starting her business, her former managing director invited her for coffee. He presented her with an extremely attractive path back, including the possibility of eventually running the company alongside him.

She had one client and no proof her new business would become anything more.

She said no.

Alex describes it as “probably for the first time” really backing herself, despite having “no evidence that this was going to grow to be anything past that first client.”

That’s where entrepreneurship gets psychologically interesting.

Self-trust isn’t only required when you leave.

You’ll need it again when a lucrative opportunity pulls you away from what you said you wanted. When an offer no longer fits. When your business model changes. When someone presents a perfectly sensible path that simply isn’t your path.

 

Building a Business Around Your Lifestyle Means Letting the Vision Change

Perhaps you’ve thought, I want to quit my job to start my own business, because you want more freedom.

But freedom isn’t a fixed picture.

The life you want at 25 may not resemble the life you want at 35 or 45. That’s not inconsistency. That’s being a person.

Early in her journey, Alex met digital nomads working from laptops while travelling and remembers thinking: “That is the dream.”

Years later, her life shifted dramatically when she unexpectedly became pregnant. Suddenly the business vision she had been pursuing needed to change too.

Her response eventually became one deceptively useful question: “Okay, what are we going to do now? What are we going to do next?”

Not: How do I force my old plan to work?

Not: Why has everything gone wrong?

What now?

That question led Alex to rethink how she stayed visible. She had always wanted a podcast, so during pregnancy she batched a remarkable amount of content and created a way to maintain what she calls a “consistent foot in the world” during a season when she knew her availability would change.

That’s building a business around your lifestyle in practice.

It isn’t creating the perfect lifestyle business once.

It’s building something flexible enough to keep responding as your life changes.

 

The Business-From-Life Framework

Alex eventually lands on a philosophy that I think deserves to be written on a Post-it somewhere near your laptop:

“Start with your values and start with you and what’s important to you. What type of life do you want to lead? And then build the business from there.”

That reverses the way many of us approach entrepreneurship.

Instead of:

Business model → revenue target → workload → squeeze life around whatever remains

Try:

Values → desired life → definition of success → business that supports it

Because “successful” isn’t objective.

One founder’s dream of a huge team might be another founder’s personal nightmare. “Fully booked” might sound impressive until you realize you don’t actually want a calendar containing 27 Zoom calls and a sad little sandwich eaten over your keyboard.

Alex asks: “What is success to you?”

That question gets harder—not easier—the more business advice you consume.

 

What If You’re More Capable Than You Think?

There’s a moment toward the end of our conversation when Alex says something every early-stage founder should hear:

“You are more capable and have more within you to create huge success than you’re probably giving yourself credit for right now.”

Not because everything will magically work.

Her story certainly doesn’t suggest that.

Plans changed. Confidence lagged behind action. Some decisions felt deeply uncomfortable. Her vision of entrepreneurship evolved alongside her actual life.

But perhaps confidence was never supposed to come first.

Maybe your next chapter starts with recognizing what Alex recognized years ago: “I don’t think we ever truly have the confidence at the time. We kind of have to dig deep and go for it.”

So if you’re asking, Should I quit my job to start a business?, I can’t answer that question for you—and neither can somebody on Instagram.

Your finances matter. Your responsibilities matter. Your season of life matters.

But so does the quiet voice underneath all the practicalities asking whether the life you’re building actually feels like yours.

You may not need certainty about the whole road.

You might simply need enough self-trust to recognize the next turn.

Listen to the full conversation with Alex McCarthy on the Her First Three Years female entrepreneur podcast to hear the parts of her “quit my job to start my own business” story we couldn’t possibly fit here—including the unexpected opportunities, uncomfortable decisions and pivots that changed what entrepreneurship looked like for her.

 

 

FAQ: Quitting Your Job to Start a Business

 

Should I quit my job to start a business?

There’s no universal answer. Alex emphasizes that the decision depends on your individual circumstances. Consider finances and responsibilities alongside your mental capacity, values and what you want your life to look like.

Do I need a business plan before quitting my job?

Not necessarily. Alex left without knowing exactly what came next, saying, “I have no idea what I’m meant to be doing” while knowing her existing path wasn’t right. A detailed plan can help, but clarity sometimes develops through experience rather than before it.

What should I expect in my first year of business?

Expect experimentation. Alex describes learning through books, podcasts and YouTube while trying cold outreach and her personal network. Your first year of business may involve testing how you want to work as much as what you sell.

How do I find my first client after leaving my job?

Start by considering existing relationships. Alex says, “We underestimate the power of the connections we already have.” Your professional and personal networks may already contain people who need your skills—or know someone who does.

What if I want to quit my corporate job but don’t feel confident?

Confidence may follow action rather than precede it. Alex says, “I had the skills. I didn’t have the confidence at the time.” Separating a genuine skill gap from a confidence gap can help you evaluate what you actually need.

How can I build a business around my lifestyle?

Begin by defining your values, desired lifestyle and personal version of success. Alex’s advice is to ask, “What type of life do you want to lead?” and build the business from there.

What if my business plans change because my life changes?

Adapt the business rather than assuming the original plan must survive unchanged. When Alex’s circumstances shifted dramatically, she began asking, “What are we going to do now?” That mindset ultimately led to new ways of marketing and staying visible.

Is starting a business worth the uncertainty?

That depends on what you want entrepreneurship to give you. Alex found meaning in “doing something on your own terms” and having greater control over how she worked. The more useful question may be whether the business you’re considering supports the life and definition of success you actually want.

 

 

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT WITH ALEX MCCARTHY

Chardét Ryel (00:00)
Welcome to her first three years, Alex. I’m so excited to have you on the show. I love your podcast. We did my episode on yours and I was like, we gotta have her story here. So thank you for being here.

Alex McCarthy (00:12)
thank you so much. I’m honored to be on the podcast. I’m really, really excited.

Chardét Ryel (00:17)
always

kind of start with the very beginning of how you began this because I know you’ve worked with so many different people. You’ve probably seen their strategies and you’ve seen their stories, but very curious like where did it start for you? When did you decide I’m gonna be a business owner? Or did you decide? Was it thrown on you?

Alex McCarthy (00:37)
Yeah, I love this question. I did kind of ponder on the beginnings. It’s been really nice to reflect that myself kind of before coming into this and think like, where did it all really begin? Because I didn’t have any entrepreneurial influence in the family. Like, so my mom was a nurse growing up, my dad was a policeman. So like very traditional jobs. And yeah, it was never something that I thought about growing up. However,

upon reflection, guess, looking back, I was always a very creative child. Like I was really drawn towards art and I always had a very like vivid imagination. So I love to read and I love to write. I studied languages in my early twenties and had all of the want to go off and become a teacher. And I very quickly realized that I, yeah, that was not the path for me. But I had that first, I actually think it was probably the first intuitive

away from something, you know, when you’re in it. And I was like, this is not what I’m meant to be doing. I have no idea what I’m meant to be doing, but I at least know this space here is, it’s not for me. And that really was, I suppose, the beginnings on what would then lead me to starting this business that I have today. I remember putting my very basic CV into an agency and I was scouted by

an export sales business who were looking for somebody who could speak languages, who have no business experience, who would come in almost as an intern and learn everything that there was to know about the world of export sales. My role was more in sales and marketing, but I’d say I was kind of like the wing woman to the MD. I did everything, everything, all aspects. Baptism of fire probably is the right…

description, but I think, you know, we don’t come into this world knowing business acumen if we’re not from that world down to like how to talk to somebody on the phone via email, how to manage their expectations. There was so much really looking back to that almost three years I had in that, in that very fast paced world, lots of travel, but yeah, I ended up walking away from that. I’d done over a million pounds in sales of

green bananas, so that was my…

Chardét Ryel (03:05)
Claims of fame, one millions in Seattle. That’s I mean, think about how much a banana cost. That’s amazing.

Alex McCarthy (03:12)
Yeah, I mean, I was there, I was selling kind of containers of those. Yeah, of course. Yeah, know, yeah, it was, that is my claim to fame. I know quite a lot about bananas. But I had a moment, again, I guess this was another intuitive moment. I was sat at my desk, like three years in, I got the promotions, I was doing really, really well on paper for that age that I was at. And I was like, I don’t feel like this is it for me. I feel quite…

boxed in and like, I’m definitely, wasn’t a creative role. Thought this isn’t what I thought it would be. I think many of us have that feeling of when I get to that point, it’s gonna feel amazing and I’m gonna feel really fulfilled and it kind of felt a bit empty. So yeah, next comes the bit that I know some people might not agree with or you might really resonate with it, but I handed my notice in to that job without a clear.

path of what I was going to do next. However, the space which I was given and the weight that was off my shoulders, not answering my Blackberry, you know the old Blackberrys.

Chardét Ryel (04:23)
I do. Yeah.

Alex McCarthy (04:25)
Not answering my work Blackberry at half 11 at night to speak to a supplier in South America. I realized that actually what I wanted to do was to get out of the town that I’d grown up in.

I had gone and stayed at uni and lived abroad in a few different countries, but I wanted to go really far away and just throw myself into a different world, meet lots of different people. And I know it sounds kind of bonkers to say, but I wanted my mind to open. I knew that there was so much about life and business and being that I hadn’t experienced yet.

Chardét Ryel (05:03)
I know that we had this conversation too on your show. I think about a lot of advice is that, you should have something lined up in the cards before you quit your job, or you should have X amount of savings, or you should have whatever. And it doesn’t always go down that way. And I really do think like the situation you’re describing where all of your mental and emotional capital is in someone else’s business, it’s almost impossible for you to do yours on the side.

Or think about what you want to do. So I would just want to say that in case anyone’s listening and they’re also answering their iPhone eleven at night and they’re like, well, let me wait to save X amount or let me wait till the moment. Sometimes you can’t.

Alex McCarthy (05:46)
it’s subject to your individual situation. And I guess it is worth me saying that at that particular point in time, I could be a lot more selfish in a good way, a good selfish, I could be very spontaneous and impulsive. And the consequence of me making those decisions wasn’t, it did have a huge weight, but it felt easier to make because it was making those decisions for me.

without really having to consider hugely at that time any other people. I had no children. And I would say also it wasn’t an easy decision despite having that freedom to make the decision. But I definitely feel that when you are giving so, so much to like a fast paced or consuming role, like you’ve said yourself, you almost, don’t have that space to actually think about

Is this actually what I want? What do I want? Who am I? You there’s deep questions that I think we all have deep down. Some of us have more clarity on that than others.

Chardét Ryel (06:53)
I think it’s really good that you’ve shared it, just so people can see that whether you fit that situation or not, you agree with it or not, you can see that it’s a possibility. And then you were saying that you needed to get as far away as possible. So what did you do?

Alex McCarthy (07:08)
book, so a one way ticket, as you do, to, well, first Dubai, and then on to Southeast Asia, then on to Australia. And just, it wasn’t just a stint of traveling. I’ll be honest, I’d saved up an amount of money and that money went down and down and down, you know, as it does. So I knew that I had to do something to raise that balance back up. But whilst I was backpacking something very…

interesting happened, which was that I had my first insight into the world of digital nomads. People in these groups, they’d have their laptops and their phones. And I just like, I thought it was like eavesdropping and then eventually got the bravery to just be like, talk to me about like, what, what is it, like, what are you doing? And lots of different roles they were doing, a social media marketing, a virtual assistant, a somewhere doing like graphic design and these businesses in these roles that they were, were doing from

a beach bar and they were, for some of them, they were simply earning enough to pay for their continued traveling. But for some of them, they were building these like little empires. They had their kind of remote teams. I suppose the first time I was meeting people who I felt were aspirational to me and I thought that that was incredible. I was like, that is the dream. Like how incredible to do something, to be paid well for it, to enjoy it.

and allow it to create more freedom for you, you know, to do that, like wherever you want, to not be tied to that one desk and that one place. So yeah, it sparked a little fire in me. I’m not going to lie.

Chardét Ryel (08:48)
Did you because it’s interesting the digital nomad world where you have some people who see it and they immediately think, okay, I want to go find a remote job where I basically do as little work as possible in order to have more life, or I decide that I want to build a business. Which way did you swing? Or did you start in one camp and move to another? Like what were you thinking at that point?

Alex McCarthy (09:13)
Bear in mind, this is probably 12 years ago. At that time, based on my values and who I was at that time, I was like, wouldn’t it be incredible to work as little as possible? To be paid really well for the work that I did, but actually, I want to spend the majority of my time experiencing the world and doing all these like…

crazy, adventurous things and it fitted with that at the time. That sparked a fire and I think that feeling is something that I hadn’t felt before. I’d felt some level of satisfaction in kind of short career that I’d had in export before, that this was like the recognition of doing something on your own terms, doing something that would be mine, that I was in control of. I felt pretty incredible to be honest, the concept.

Chardét Ryel (10:03)
What was the first iteration of that then? So once you you look at it and you think, this I could have more time, I could explore, and I don’t need to be in an office, I don’t need to be answering the phone late at night. What was the first attempt, let’s say, to go into that world?

Alex McCarthy (10:18)
I had the skills. I didn’t have the confidence at the time. don’t, I’ll kind of side note that with, I don’t think we ever truly have the confidence at the time. We kind of had to dig deep and go for it. It was upon my return to the UK, I got offered, I say it’s a lifeline, but I worked really hard for a amazing entrepreneurial couple who’d had a tech startup in Brisbane. I was hired through an agency. I ended up working there for a year and they were incredible.

they were killing it. The numbers, the money, the lifestyle they were living, this has now raised the bar for me in terms of what was available and what I could do for myself. And they really got behind me and were reaffirming, I guess, what I did know deep down. And yeah, short story is they tried to sponsor me. I could not get sponsored by this company. We tried everything.

And I flew back home to England, a bit gutted, but also they said, we’re not letting go of you. We want you to do what you’re doing, be our marketing manager, we’ll pay you, do it remotely. Set yourself up, because technically, you know, we’ll be your client. And from that moment, I then realized that what I was offering to this client, even though it was going to take up quite a lot of my time, I did have time to offer these marketing services to other businesses and that.

there was that kind penny drop moment of, okay, we’re doing this. And yeah, I guess that was the very beginnings was that return back to the UK and starting to put myself out there uncomfortably.

Chardét Ryel (11:55)
Think it’s a really good reminder anyways for people because I know on social media you’ve seen it too, they always sell this vision of, tomorrow you’re gonna have fifty clients and they’re gonna be like lining up the door. And sometimes it happens like this that actually someone who you could have been working for says, No, we want to be your client, which also is a really incredible person to say that and be not selfish and say, No, I want you to be your own agency, your own company.

And then you go from there, like you have the first client and you go from there. So how did you once you had this first one, what are some of the things you tried that worked, that didn’t work, and getting more and figuring out what you can offer?

Alex McCarthy (12:36)
Just after I got back and I started doing those first things to to grow and build my business, I got a text from my old managing director of the export company who invited me to go for a coffee. And honestly, he laid out, he’d already written it up, a contract. He was like, we need you to come back. The business isn’t the same without you. Bear in mind, like I just, I was fired up, ready to start my business. And he laid out an offer.

almost too good to refuse. Like not many people know about it. He basically wanted me to kind of do a fast track over the five year period to run the company with him and was like, what’d you say? You’re my person. We’ve missed you. Do you want to come back? And I turned it down. That on myself, probably for the first time, like really like that, that was a lot to walk away from. But I just thought it was worth saying that because it really wasn’t easy to back myself.

really with no evidence that this was going to grow to be anything past that first client.

Chardét Ryel (13:40)
Those moments, they keep coming up, right? With other things where you decide, I don’t want to offer this service anymore. I don’t want to do it this way. I want to do it at a different price. And you’ll constantly be tested with someone who comes there and is like, actually, here you go. Here’s what you’ve been trying to get out of, but I’ll give you loads of money for it.

Alex McCarthy (14:01)
think for me, it was a really great point to have a deeper sense of confirmation within myself. again, I guess there were things that I learned in sales and marketing, but I also think I was such a baby business owner. In the very beginning, I didn’t have a coach or a mentor, so I was just learning from books and podcasts and YouTube videos. I did a lot of cold emailing.

cold calling, I used my personal network. I must mention that we underestimate the power of the connections we already have. We think clients and customers, and I think we instantly switch to people that we don’t know and already have a connection with. But I can guarantee you if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, I don’t have an Instagram account. I don’t have an email list. No one knows about my business. People know you.

I really would use that personal network first. And that’s where I got like a good handful of those first clients. I just, I asked around.

Chardét Ryel (15:03)
Something where a lot of people listening, and this was me too, feel very cringe about saying, especially if you’re new to this or you’re doing something totally different than what people know you for, and saying, you know, on LinkedIn or email or whatever, hey, I’m doing this. Do you want to do this with me or do you know someone? I know that that can feel people don’t want to do it. Like I told you on your podcast, I didn’t want to say to people, I’m a personal trainer when I had

This college degree and this like business experience. It feels hard. And so I think you saying this is so essential to anyone listening. Like, you know, overcome it. It

Alex McCarthy (15:43)
felt very uncomfortable to put myself out there like that. And there was a lot, actually in the very beginnings as well, a lot of, when I say judgment, maybe judgment’s not the right word, but a lack of understanding maybe from those who are close around me because I was doing something new. Like, hold on a minute, you’ve walked away from this amazing career to start this thing, like we don’t really understand what it is. You know, people haven’t heard of those terms and that vocabulary and

that world before, standing up for yourself and like digging in and going, yeah, this is my thing and I am going to do it and I am proud and I do enjoy it. It’s easy to say it, but when you’re living and breathing that in the infancy of starting something, I do remember it being hard.

Chardét Ryel (16:30)
Are there any moments you remember in particular that were really surprising, difficult, didn’t go the way you wanted? I don’t know, client stories where you’re like, no, this is not how I wanna do this.

Alex McCarthy (16:43)
Well, yeah, that’s a really good question. Let me think. Good to share when things don’t go to plan. So I guess an example of that, yeah, an example of that for me would be that I invested what felt at the time, because it’s all relative, I think to our situations, it felt like a really big financial investment to be part of a mastermind, 12 month mastermind. was like really, but they marketed themselves amazingly.

I was really excited to jump into it. You know, I’m all in. That’s just me. I’m supporting myself. I’ve got this, like, you know, the business is going to get bigger and going to expand, I’m going to get my team. And literally, like, I think it was month three or four into it, I met my current partner. And then month four ahead of that, I very unexpectedly found out I was pregnant. The life and the vision that I’ve got now is like

better than I ever could have imagined, but it’s so different and integrating like, you know, motherhood and business together. It’s just, yeah, like, mean, I haven’t got it all figured out, but definitely that was a really big moment for me to go, my goodness. Like I’ve had to rethink all of it.

Chardét Ryel (17:56)
I remember you said this when we were wrapping up the episode on your show. I think we had stopped recording. You said, by the way, I I can imagine what that would be like, you know, because especially you made this big investment for the time for you and you’re ready to go. And then you kind of say, Okay, well, it’s not gonna be exactly the way that I thought and you’ve s as you said, it’s been completely different.

But in many ways better than you could have imagined. And that’s gonna happen for a lot of people listening in one way or another.

Alex McCarthy (18:28)
think you’ve got a choice in these situations where you can be like that panic. Yes, we’re allowed to maybe have a short period of doing it, but then I think a great question, I always ask it to myself anytime I feel myself going into kind of panic and is, okay, what are we going to do now? What are we going to do next? And really like my podcast came from that happening. So I was like, right, how do I like change up my marketing and the way that I’m connecting with people? And I batched like,

a year’s worth of podcast in the time I was pregnant, knowing I wasn’t going to launch it.

Chardét Ryel (19:02)
Did this while you were pregnant.

Alex McCarthy (19:04)
And then I launched it a month before my son was born. And then I had episodes coming out every week all through that kind of newborn bit. And I’d always wanted to do a podcast, don’t get me wrong, but it was just like, this is the time to do it. And I’ve had great opportunities come from putting myself out there in.

in that format. like depth and I like to connect in that way. yeah, I guess what I’m saying is sometimes from the moments where you’re like, my goodness, this is unexpected spanner and spanners in the works, they come in all forms, I think, in life and in business. It can sometimes cause us to have great epiphanies and things that can come from that as well. Good pivots.

Chardét Ryel (19:47)
Yeah. ‘Cause it forces your hand a little bit, right? You’re like, Well, I have this amount of time to do this and I can interpret it this way or I can do it this way and you just go forward and yeah, it’s amazing. A year’s worth. I really think it’s amazing that you really found the thing that felt in flow for you and and you really believed in it as a platform for your for your business, what you wanted to do. It

Alex McCarthy (20:13)
also made me feel that despite what was going on, and maybe other people will resonate with this as well, that it doesn’t have to be motherhood and having a baby, but things will happen in different seasons of our life where we’re needed much more heavily supporting or raising a family, whatever that is. And for me, I could see it being this consistent foot in the world that I felt really passionate about, but I…

wanted to stay visible in some way and wanted to continue that connection.

Chardét Ryel (20:47)
think that that’s probably the least talked about advantage of it is that creating something where it doesn’t require you always being there because you don’t know what’s gonna happen in life. If you have kids to take care of an aging parent, if your own health starts to go in whatever way, you just don’t know. And having something like you said that you know is out there and is allowing you to still reach people and connect with them. Yeah. I think that’s one of the

most important reasons to start something like a podcast if you have a business because especially as solopreneurs, which many people listening are, who else is gonna be there if you can’t

Alex McCarthy (21:27)
that yeah, so glad that I the decision to do it.

Chardét Ryel (21:31)
How because I know that you specifically help other people with their businesses. What is the the most important thing for you to really transmit to these people that you didn’t have or that maybe that you had to learn later?

Alex McCarthy (21:45)
You are more capable and have more within you to create huge success than you’re probably giving yourself credit for right now. What is success to you? What is it that you want or need to earn? Work out what the actual vision is, that stage one at least that you’re working towards. you know, when you actually look at it,

you’ll be a lot closer to achieving that than you realize. It’s so easy to think that you have to do business a certain way, but you don’t. There’s so much freedom and so much creativity within it. And that’s why I think going inwards, then constantly looking outwards for that, what do I do next? Am I doing it right? What should I be doing? Start with your values and start with you and what’s important to you? What type of life do you want to lead?

and then built the business from there.

Chardét Ryel (22:42)
Perfect segue into your podcast because it is all about that, isn’t it? So if you want to share where they can listen to more and also how they can connect with you and work with you as well, because there’s so much more.

Alex McCarthy (22:55)
So

my podcast is by My Kind of Business and it’s very different. Every single episode and interview is different and I want it to feel that way so people don’t think that business has to look a certain way with a certain voice and a certain background. So that is My Kind of Business and then I am also on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all the main social media platforms under Alex McCarthy Coaching where, yes, I like to also kind of show up and…

be real and relatable and hopefully motivate you to continue growing your business.

Chardét Ryel (23:28)
So we’ll include links to everything so you could connect with Alex, but also specifically after this episode, go find her podcast and listen because I think it’s a great if you’re thinking about the advice you just gave of make business your way, perfect time to go and find one of her episodes where you’ll see just what that could maybe look like for you. And thank you for being here and for sharing your story.

It’s just captivating. I can see that you have the language background. It comes through because I’m just sitting here waiting, like what’s the next part? And then the next part. I love it, so thank you.

Alex McCarthy (24:02)
You’re so welcome. I’ve really, really enjoyed the conversations. Thank you so much.

 

 

 

JOIN PODCAST ALCHEMY HERE TO LAUNCH YOUR PODCAST