No right time
There’s a new episode of the Corporate Escapology podcast (here or here) out this week, with Niall Riddell, founder of Paua – an electric vehicle startup.
I met Niall when I was scouting for startups for the accelerator programme I run. Niall’s corporate background at EDF, SSE and others came up in conversation and we ended up talking about why it can be such a challenge for corporate folks to reinvent themselves as startup founders.
You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what Niall thinks – and particularly the strategies he’s employing so he takes the good parts of his corporate background and ditches the rest. But right at the end of the podcast he talks about the timing of leaving and how it’s never right. He left his safe job with a very young family at the height of the pandemic with all its associated uncertainties.
He says: “For me the right time was when I realised there wasn’t a right time”.
There are always dozens of reasons why you shouldn’t leave right now. Why you should wait another six months, for the next role, the new organisation, or the market to improve. We look for factors outside our control.
And maybe the truth is we’re not really ready, we’re not adequately prepared to exit. Our corporate training has taught us not to be reckless, so that caution could be very well-placed.
Or it could be an excuse.
I often speak with clients who are waiting for some kind of sign to leave. Others are looking for permission (sometimes from me). Still others want a fool-proof strategy, a blueprint with everything marked out “No risk here”.
Earlier in the podcast Niall quoted Steve Jobs:
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
One of the things about Niall that you’ll learn in the podcast is that he’s really studied himself. He took every personality test going, attended every leadership course he could and he got tonnes of 360° feedback.
So when Steve says “you’ve got to trust in something”, Niall has been able to look beyond karma and the law of attraction and instead believe in himself.
I think we could all do with a bit of that self-belief.
My path leaving corporate life hasn’t been neatly planned out. It included numerous failures and mis-steps, awkward retreats and periods of self-doubt, questioning whether I was doing the right thing.
I waited for redundancy at bp, I wasn’t as brave like Niall who resigned.
But given I’d only ever known corporate jobs, salaries, pensions, holiday and sick pay, I must have trusted in something pretty deep down inside me. Something that said “You’ll be alright”.
And of course I am. And you will be too.
We end the podcast agreeing that we can still go back. The ultimate de-risk! Our return to corporate life is not permanently blocked off because we have chosen to leave. We may in fact be more valuable to corporate employers in the future because of the experience we have gained and the tests we have overcome.
I wrote Corporate Escapology for a few reasons, but one of the main ones was because I hate seeing people trapped. I think “Hopeless” is one of the saddest words in the English language. I saw – and still see – many people trapped and hopeless and I want to change that.
Like Niall, and maybe like me, one day they will realise there’s no ‘right time’ when you look forward, only when you look back.
So back yourself.
If 2024 is the year you want change, I’m here to help.
Listen to the podcast here on Spotify or you can watch us on YouTube.
