Standing on the brink…

What is it about Novembers? It was just two short years ago, in November 2006, that I decide I needed a change of pace, started learning about networking, blogging, personal branding and myriad other ways to find my feet in the world (yes even 40 years on) and carve a niche for myself (or gouge my existing one deeper).

Having successfully made that transformation and enjoying its fruits, I am now teetering, slightly fearfully, on the edge of another potential major transformation and considering whether I really want to start up a business. OK, so I’m not talking about giving up a day job in one market and going out chasing a dream in something completely new, I’m merely talking about a step change from being a consultant to owning a consultancy, and starting it in the market I already know and love.

What concerns me is the idea of sacrificing the nice steady (as steady as contractors can ever be) pace of income in order to chase after something based on some feelings and desires about what should be possible. The upside is an ever expanding experience where I am the person who defines my own limits in life, and where I am constantly driven to new experiences and marvelous discoveries. The downside is a father who no longer has time for his young children, his wife or himself, and who has used all his savings, shortcuts, belt-tighening and favours and is still clinging on to the dream because he’s “almost broken through” …

Interestingly enough fellow LinkedIn Blogger Scott Allen, a familiar name on this blog, has collected a great list of starting points for me to work out whether or not I’m really made of “the right stuff”, in his section Becoming an Entrepreneur.

I think there’s plenty of material in there that’ll help me decide whether I’m right for it, so now I guess the simple way for me to work out if its right for me (before taking the final plunge) is to speak to a few people who’ve done the “start up” thing themselves, and find out how they found the experience.

Any opinions? …