Hey there, it's Marissa. If you're thinking about quitting your job to start something new, perhaps pivot or even an online business, you need to really consider the pros and cons. What are they? Well, that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode of the Resilient Faith Online podcast. Welcome. I'm Marissa Shadrick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm a digital strategist and certified copywriter, but more importantly, a woman of faith. In this podcast, you'll find a biblical perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we let our faith shape our work to create positive change online. To connect with our private Facebook group of faith-based online entrepreneurs, go to MarissaShepard.com forward slash faith. Hello, hello everyone. So glad you're listening today. We're going to talk about something that has been in the media. I've seen a lot of articles, and it it just really piqued my curiosity. So I was reading a lot of articles and looking at this topic of the great resignation. You've probably heard of it, and typically I don't like to record something that'll be dated, but I think even if we listen to this a year from now or two years from now, it'll be able to provide a little bit of history and we'll see how everything pans out in the future, right? We'll see how right they were or how things really unfolded. So right now, if you don't know what this is, the great resignation is people are quitting. They're quitting their jobs. And the reasons vary. Some people try to speculate why. They try to connect it with what happened in 2020 with the pandemic, but really we get little interviews or comments from people. There's even a Twitter feed, the great resignation of why uh people are quitting their jobs. You would think, uh, if the first thought would be that they want a better job, right? But as we look at what's happened right now, I think we're getting back to some of the fundamental things that humanity wants. I mean, think about it. When we look back at what we've been through in 2020 and all of the things that have gone on, um, people are more aware of a lot of things, maybe things that we put for granted. Um, perhaps the things about health and the stress from being maybe in a corporate job and having to commute and show up in an office, and all of a sudden things completely stopped. And now you're working from home and there's less stress, and maybe you have time to walk, and maybe you have time to uh be able to spend with family instead of commuting. So people became more aware of health. Um, also, people were aware of family and how important it was because many were separated from their families. And during lockdown, people thought about life, you know, because think of the things right now. It almost sounds like so far removed when we think of soap and toilet paper and food becoming a priority and wondering if there would be enough in the store the next time we went the following week, and people started, you know, stocking up their shelves and buying way too much, which caused more scarcity of different items. And then I think people were thinking about fulfillment too and and what really matters most in their lives. And I know for myself, I just started appreciating the little things, the little things that at that time seemed like luxuries and we take for granted every day, and really reflecting on past decisions and even future decisions, what we would do. And of course, parents needed to homeschool their children. Boy, that was an adventure, right? We had to, I remember during the pandemic, we had to set up, you know, office space for everybody here in our home because our daughter lives with us, our granddaughter lives with us, and my husband stopped traveling. So my husband was in one room, and my daughter was in the living room in one part of the room, and my granddaughter was in another corner with a desk, and it was crazy. And we all kind of tag team to help with the homeschooling. But families had to pivot. They had to pivot and they had to, you know, kind of work with what they had or what they didn't have. And work from home became a household word. You know, for us entrepreneurs that work online, we're used to this. We know what it's like to work online, we know how to schedule our time, you know, we know how to leverage our time at home for work and personal life. And we separate those two so that we can be very productive in our business world, right? In our business life. So I think there's a lot of opportunity to think about what we would do differently. And I know for myself, I was very reflective too, very grateful for the things we did have. You know, when we did have hand sanitizer and we had soap and toilet paper, I had to end up buying industrial soap, like the kind they put in dispensers in and commercial buildings because I couldn't find soap. And I still have that lavender soap. We're gonna have enough soap probably for the rest of this year. But in any event, um now we're seeing people quit their jobs. You know, things are starting to open up, they're going back to work, and instead of just saying, yay, things are going back to normal, they're quitting and leaving. And it's been also predicted that more people are going to do the same and look for something different, or maybe they're looking to start an online business. So this hypothesis was first coined by uh Texas AM University professor Anthony Klotz, who thinks the country is on the cusp of what is called the great resignation. So, in looking at this, I found it really fascinating because if you're as old as I am, you remember when there's, you know, times where there are no jobs, people would take any kind of job. And then, you know, when we had um the recession, you know, a lot of times people that did get jobs, they were doing the jobs of two or three people and they were working long hours. And of course, I've been far removed from the corporate setting for a while because I've been working from home and loving it. But I think people are re-evaluating everything about work, and I think people are realizing that your work is more than a paycheck. They're really looking to see, you know, what is really important in life. To me, I think it just comes right down to who we are as a human, you know, human to human, people want to be with their families, they don't want to miss their kids growing up, they want to be more involved. I think we're connecting back to the things that really matter most. That's my opinion. Um, maybe people are looking for other jobs, maybe other opportunities. Of course, now because so many people quit, there's a lot of jobs available, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee, you know, a job for people. So I just wanted to bring a different perspective here. Um, and I know when people decide to maybe start a business of their own online, the one thing is the freedom of time, right? Autonomy. You set your own schedule, you work from home. Um, if you need to be gone on a weekday for something, you can make up for it at another time. So there's a lot of flexibility that people love, but it's not all that easy, you know, especially when you're starting out. And you have to make sure that whatever you choose to do online, it's viable. It's something that you can actually scale and build a business on. It can't just be passion alone. And you need to have a skill in that area as well, or at least have in your plan a way to acquire those skills or hire someone that has those skills. So it's not always as easy. And so people sometimes think they have an idea and they have a passion and they can, you know, make six figures, you know, overnight. And it's not always that that easy. So I wanted to just share something uh from the Bible because there's so many great parables and stories and things that we can take away. And this is specifically for people that want to start something new and maybe in the online space. Now, some of these people are quitting jobs, they may want to go back to the corporate world, but it sounds like people are getting more in touch with their values and really wanting more of a holistic lifestyle. So the story I'm thinking about is um is building your house on the solid rock. You probably uh heard that parable, and that comes from uh let me look here, I can't remember offhand which scripture it is, Matthew 7, 24, 27. And it's really based on uh faith and listening to the word of God and applying it in your own life and acquiring wisdom. And it's saying that when we do that, we have a solid foundation for our lives. So the story goes: anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on a solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it's built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish. Like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rain and floods come and the winds beat against the house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. And boy, if you're in the online space, you know what it feels like to have those storms and those winds uh beating up against you. It's not all sunshine all the time. Sometimes there's setbacks, there's launches that don't work out the way we've wanted it to. There's, you know, um maybe clients that back out. There's all kinds of things that can happen. And so, you know, I love this scripture, not only as it applies to faith, but I think it applies to a lot of things, especially if we're trying to do a do-over. We want to make sure that we build something on something that's solid. And I'm speaking specifically to those people who are maybe thinking of creating an online business. You certainly can, it's possible. But one of the things you have to realize is you have to really invest in yourself. You have to invest in yourself and find out everything you can about the online space and get mentors, you know, that will help you because that will shorten the learning curve so much. So that's going to be a big part of your cost. I've invested in a lot of education and not just in becoming a certified copywriter, but I've invested and I still invest in my education so that I can be right on the cutting edge of what's going on in the online space and to figure out new strategies. And because marketing is a big subject and there's different ways to go about it, and it doesn't stay the same. It shifts. Things are different this year than it was last year. And so I invest in myself, and that's one of the things that you need to realize if you're going to be, you know, in the online space is that you need to invest a considerable amount of resources that you have in yourself, in educating yourself, in programs, in mentorship. And then once you have your idea honed in and you know that it's marketable and it's crystal clear, you need to know how it's different from other businesses. What's your unique value? And so that's going to set you apart. And then you need to have enough resources to advertise. Hate to say it, but it's important. I try to get around all the Facebook ads. I have a love-hate with Facebook, but you do need to either whether it's YouTube ads or Facebook ads, you have to know that you're going to have to set aside a marketing budget for ads. And then you have your other, you know, administrative costs as well. It's like any other business. You're not necessarily getting a brick and mortar building, but there's these other things that you do need in place when you're creating an online business. And you need those because the other thing you want to do is you want to generate revenue and grow your email list as quickly as possible because you want to begin to outsource. And that's going to be important as you grow. So you want to be able to streamline everything and educate yourself, invest in ads, be able to set up a funnel that's going to work for you and bring some revenue so you can begin to outsource bits of it out because you won't be able to do everything. You'll reach a ceiling, and it'll be really hard for you to do everything. And then you're going to have the same kind of stress that maybe you had in corporate life. So I speak from experience. So I know this is what happens if you don't plan well. So I'm trying to spare you one of some of the mistakes that I made by just saying that know that you do have some cost up front doing that. Now you can do it with less cost, maybe, but it may take longer. And the other thing, you know, besides having something that's marketable, you want to protect your mind. Your mindset needs to be so healthy and you have to be kind of like lock in to what your goal is and your vision and just keep working on it day after day. Create those habits that eventually are going to give you the results that you want. So it's really a matter of, I'm not going to call it blind faith because you set goals, but you execute every day based on the plan and based on the habits and the things that you need to do each day to accomplish those goals. And you just get up and you follow it and you do it. And then you look back and you can check analytics and you can see how you're scaling and how you're growing. So I just wanted to share that because sometimes we hear that it's so easy to make six figures and you know, you can create your own business and it's, you know, you're going to have this great life. And you see these pictures of the moms with the little babies on their lap, and it sounds so great and so easy, but it's work. It's still work. And so it's rewarding work. And if it's something that you like to do and you don't mind working by yourself behind a desk, because oftentimes, yeah, there's Zoom calls and meetings, but most of the time you're behind a computer, you're working. And yes, you can work with a laptop and you can work from anywhere, basically, but you're still going to be working from a laptop. And as you grow a team, then you'll have more people that you're going to interact with. But in the beginning, it's just you, unless maybe you and your husband, your spouse, or you and your wife are working together. Usually the majority of people, it starts with just them. So you got to make sure that your mindset is healthy. You want to make sure you take care of your health because that's going to help you with your energy. So really mindset and managing your energy, getting enough sleep, you know, maximizing the time of day when you're most creative, whether that's morning or evening, all these things you end up having to learn and implement and be almost um militant about it because it's going to help you in the long run. And so I just finished my uh quarterly calendar for the next quarter and I make sure I put in there the things that I need to accomplish in a quarter and I break it down every month to get those things done. Because if I don't, I can have the same kind of squirrel syndrome that everybody else has. So when you have a good solid foundation, then when things happen, when the rain comes, when the wind comes, it's not going to throw you off. You're going to be prepared for it because you've been developing these habits and building this business, and you did your due diligence and you know that it's viable. So you want to make sure you've got a healthy mindset, you've got a good marketable product, and then your copy has to be stellar. Your copywriting. That's all the words that you write to persuade someone to click, to download, to sign up. All those words need to be very targeted for your market. If you got those three things, and I don't mean to simplify it at all, because there's a lot of little things in there, but really your mindset, your marketable product, and the copy, the things that you write are really going to be your big buckets, the big things that are going to help you grow business. So it's interesting that in these articles, I saw it looks like people are looking for something better. It's like business as usual is not good enough anymore. For whatever the reasons, people are speculating. I know in the circle of influence that I have, in the people that are around me, friends and family, I know their reasons. And their reasons are usually family, they're usually health, they're usually want less stress, they usually want more, they'd rather have even less money and maybe have more lifestyle. And it's something that people are realizing, hey, you know, we're here today, but who knows what's going to happen tomorrow? You know, I mean, things are kind of crazy. I mean, that's kind of the things that older people think about, but younger people are really thinking, do I really want to do this? And, you know, right now with this articles that came out, it could be that a lot of people are moving to different states. And maybe that's why there's a lot of people resigning from their jobs because there's been uh real estate's been crazy, right? Lately. And so maybe people are moving to other states, maybe to be closer to family, maybe to get out of the city, go to somewhere more remote. Who knows what all the reasons are, right? Does anybody really know? But the point is people are making a shift, they're pivoting, they're looking for something else than what they already have. And it's all industries, it's not just one particular industry. So whatever you choose to do, make sure you build build it on something solid. Even if it's going back to another corporate job, make sure it's building it on something solid. And nowadays you got the hybrids where people can maybe work on online from home and then go into the office maybe in partial time. Things are different now. They're different. But I think people are looking to connect more with love, with joy. They're looking to take to connect more with peace in their life and patience. And I think a lot of us, just because of everything that we've gone through, we appreciate kindness and goodness, and we appreciate faithfulness when people, our friends, are faithful, and we appreciate gentleness and we appreciate self-control. And really, if we want all those things, if we want that peace and we want joy and we want love and we want a lifestyle that's not crazy and hectic and taxing and stressful, maybe, just maybe, what we're looking for is for Jesus. Maybe we're looking for the God that loves us. All people, all people know us and them. God loves all people. And he wants to give all these things. It's called the fruit of the spirit out of Galatians 5, 22 and 23. He wants to give all people the joy and the peace and the patience. Maybe that's what people are looking for. Who knows? Everybody has their theory, right? And here's mine. Maybe the great resignation is really trying to find truth, find peace, find joy, find love. So that's my thought for you today. So, in the meantime, remember to cultivate resilient faith online to create positive change in the world. If you found this podcast helpful, then subscribe for wherever you're listening today so you never miss an episode. Every subscription, review, or rating means so much to me. So keep them coming and share this with a friend. For more free content, go to MarissaShedrick.com and remember keep cultivating resilient faith online to create positive change in the world.