How to Leave Your Corporate Job and Start Before It’s Perfect with Gayle Goddard

Kathi: Hi everyone, this is Kathi and I'm back with Gayle Goddard. Gayle spent more than 20 years organizing financial data before turning her skill and passion for conquering clutter into being a professional organizing owner. As an owner of the Clutter Fairy, she's a Board Certified Professional Organizer just like myself, and she coordinates the Houston coaching meetup, a support group that meets every month helping people declutter their life. I love speaking with other professional organizers, so I wanted to have Gayle on the show so maybe you can get a few extra tips about how to get your life better organized and energized. Hey Gayle, thanks so much for being on the show.

Gayle: Of course, thanks for having me.

Kathi: Absolutely. So, okay, you were a CPA for years, right?

Gayle: Yeah.

Kathi: So what made you shift into becoming a professional organizer?

Gayle: So I had to have a surgery and I was off for six weeks for the first time since college, and I went to go visit some friends while I was convalescing, and they had to sweep the couch off for me to be able to sit down. We share a hobby in common of beading. I do beaded jewelry and they do too, which is how we're friends. And so there were beads all over the living room, and as I was sitting on the couch I was like, I could help you guys organize the beads. So we started doing that that summer for a couple hours on a Friday night or a Saturday. We would work on organizing the beads. And there was some point where I was sitting there putting beads into piles and feeling like, I am having so much fun right now. This is the coolest thing, organizing the beads. And I looked up and they were miserable. They were not having fun at all. But it was my aha moment: oh, I can do something that I think is fun that other people really don't like to do. And that's how I found NAPO and found a local chapter, and within six months I had started my business.

Kathi: I absolutely love that story. I had time off. I had a year off to reinvent myself, not due to an injury. I just had that time, and without the space of having time to get clear and see what you wanted to do, it's hard to shift. And I did the same thing. I started helping a girlfriend declutter and I'm like, "This is really fun." And she's like, "Oh my god, no. Oh my god, no." It takes weirdos like us to be able to offer that service to the world, because a lot of people are so intimidated by it, and for us it just brings us joy, which means we're doing what we're supposed to be doing.

Gayle: Right. Exactly.

Kathi: That's what it's all about. Boy, I love it. Beads and beads and beads. Boy, that takes a while to organize.

Gayle: Right. But it was the perfect project for me to realize I love beading, and sorting the beads is as much fun as doing the bead work. And for them it was like, please kill me now. Why are you still here? Why are we still doing this? So it was a very obvious dichotomy of I'm having fun and they're not having fun. It was perfect.

Kathi: Yeah. And then trying to make it fun. It's always about let's make this a game. It's not like things are going to die if you don't get this organized. Let's just have some fun doing it. It's all about the creativity. That's a really, really good story. So as an entrepreneur, when you first started your business, were you a CPA working for a firm, or did you have your own business?

Gayle: No, actually I worked in a corporate environment. My last 15 years of my 25 years, I was in a cemetery and funeral home consolidator business. So I worked in a corporate office of a company that bought and sold cemeteries and funeral homes.

Kathi: I have a good friend who does that right now, actually.

Gayle: Oh, really?

Kathi: Yeah. Small world. So whenever you started your business, what was the biggest challenge that you think you had as you were launching?

Gayle: Oh, it was 100% fear. It was fear of being self-employed. I had worked in corporate offices since I got out of college. I had always been an employee, so the business was somebody else's responsibility. And I spent two years doing organizing in the morning and accounting in the afternoon. I was in a mastermind group at the time, and there was this one girl in the mastermind group who used to say to me, when are you quitting your job? When are you quitting your job? When are you quitting your job? And she just said it over and over for months. And finally, around the two-year mark, I was like, okay, I'm terrified. I'm totally terrified. I cannot imagine that I can be a business owner, but I really love this work so much, and I am not going to let that stop me. I cannot let my own terror prevent me from doing this.

Gayle: And I had to tell my mother at the time, because my mother was also like, "You're going to be self-employed? That's really scary. What if you starve to death?" She was spiraling out about it in a mom way as well. And I had to have this conversation with my mother and say, "Look, I'm scared enough. I cannot be scared for both of us. You have to get on board, because I'm already terrified and I really want to do this." And to her credit, she totally got on board. She's like, "Fine. I'm with you. We're doing it." And I just took the step into the air and hoped that I landed okay. And 15 years later, I'm still here. So it worked out. But it was terrifying in the moment.

Look, I'm scared enough. I cannot be scared for both of us.

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Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. You and I kind of started around the same time. I've been doing it about 17 years. And when I came home and said, I know what I'm going to be, I'm going to be a professional organizer and image consultant, my husband's looking at me like I'm crazy. Like, really? What? Is that a job? I'm like, yeah, it's a job, actually. And it was right when Clean Sweep was coming out. The show was out, and so people finally knew what maybe a professional organizer was. So that was really good timing.

Gayle: Yeah. So that's part of what sold me on it too, because I had been watching all those shows and I was fascinated with the organizer on the show, but I had never made the leap from watching them to I could do that, until I tried to help my friend. It was all part of the gel, right? That they put it out there in the television shows to show us it was a possibility.

Kathi: Yeah. We were really, really blessed that people actually knew what we were becoming, as it was becoming an industry thing. And now NAPO is going really strong, of course, and more of us are board certified, so that's fantastic. So there are so many women… I don't know if you read this in Forbes, but 60% of women in corporate America are thinking about leaving their jobs and branching out. It's a big, huge… what are they calling it, a grand exit or something, right? So if you had to give a piece of advice to a woman that's looking to get out of corporate just like you did, what would you say to them? What would be their first step that you would recommend?

Gayle: I think the first step is reach out to all of your network, because you're not as alone as you think you are. There are people that will be in a mastermind group with you, or there are people that will counsel you at church, or there are people that are your friends that will support you in doing something like this. And I think as women we get taught to be paralyzed by fear instead of being fearful and taking action anyway. Men get taught to be afraid and shut up and be a man and do it anyway. They tell men to launch and they tell women to panic. And I think it's part of our cultural programming as women that we have to be convinced that it's okay for us to go and do something like that.

They tell men to launch and they tell women to panic.

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Gayle: And I'm here to tell you, I have not regretted it. As terrified as I was when I thought I was going to leave corporate and go do this work, I have never regretted it for a minute. Even in year three, when I had a month where I had no clients for a whole month and I thought I wasn't going to be able to pay the rent. Even in that moment, I wasn't wishing I could go back to my old job. And so I think whatever it takes to reach out to the people that can be supportive and help you fill in the things that you think are missing, to give you guidance about how to go forward, so that you can get past your "I'm paralyzed by fear" and be fearful and do it anyway.

Kathi: I love that. And you did it the way a lot of people do it, where you do half time and half time. You're launching your job on the side. I tell people that all the time. You don't have to go cold turkey, right?

Gayle: You don't have to run in and quit your job and stomp your foot and say, "Forget you people. I'm leaving."

Kathi: Right. Right. Or you can just do that and just do it, which is what I did. But I'm a serial entrepreneur, so I've always been working for myself anyhow.

Gayle: Well, and the other thing I'll say too is that I think we keep waiting to arrive at the perfect place where we've got all of the things in place. And when I went from, hey, I want to be an organizer, to having my first workshop, I didn't have it all together. I didn't know everything yet. I just wrote a workshop and went and put it out there. And that is no different than building the first Apple in the garage.

Kathi: Right. Exactly.

Gayle: You don't have to have all your ducks 100% in a row, and it doesn't have to be perfect before you launch. And if you wait for that perfection, you will never go. You can't be so terrified of what might happen. And maybe you've missed something, or maybe you didn't do it right. It's like, who cares? You just got to get out there and do it and keep refining it, because you will keep growing and getting better all the time anyway. And that's definitely going to happen at the beginning just like it does in the middle, right?

If you wait for that perfection, you will never go.

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Kathi: There's always going to be something that happens. When I wrote my first book, one of my mantras was perfection is overrated and simply not worth it. You just can't get stuck trying to make everything perfect, because nothing's ever perfect anyhow. And even if it is perfect today, it might not be perfect tomorrow, because everything changes. So I think that's really good advice. Don't get stuck in that. And ladies, if you're listening out there and you want to jump, just jump. What's the worst that can happen? I don't know. You fall on your face and you get another corporate job. But I'll tell you, you won't, because you end up saying, "Oh my gosh, this is so much fun." Once you find what you want to do, whatever brings you joy, I think is what we're here to do in life.

Gayle: I think that's one of the clues about self-employment, too. Like, you better be loving it. You don't want to start this business and be in charge of, like, selling insurance unless you love selling insurance, right? It needs to be something that you have a great passion for. And if you don't know what that is yet, then it's not quite time to leap.

Kathi: Yeah. And if you do find something that you're like, I love doing this, that's probably what you should be doing for a job, right? I'm with you on that. And once you start your job, I think the tip that I would give people is, well, just take for instance, as professional organizers, we all start as generalists, and then we figure out what little niche we want to go into and who we want to work with. Who do we like to work with? Do we like sorting beads? I personally love sorting beads. I also like working in garages, but I also love working in the closet. But some people would say, I don't do garages. I don't do beads. I do corporate. Right? So whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. You just model your business as you go, and as you learn what you really love to do within each profession that you choose to jump into. That's what it's all about, making it your own.

Gayle: Right. Exactly. And every story of a successful entrepreneur starts with, "Well, we had this idea and we threw it out there and this bombed and that bombed, and we borrowed money and we mortgaged the house and that bombed, and we talked to this guy and that bombed, and then we hit." It's never a straight, perfect path, and waiting for that perfect path is not going to work. It's never going to happen. And I think organizers in general, a lot of us are a little perfectionist. That's part of what makes us good organizers, right? But it also can be the Achilles heel that prevents you from launching into the next cool thing that you want to do.

Kathi: Yeah. And whoever you are out there listening to this, you don't have to become a pro organizer, obviously.

Gayle: Right. Right.

Kathi: Whatever makes you feel joy, that's what it's all about. So think about what you like to do in your pastime. Think about what you do for your friends. They're like, "You're really good at this." And you're like, "This was a blast. I love that." That's how I started. It sounds like that's how you started, helping a girlfriend clear her clutter. And she's like, "You're really good at this." And I'm like, "Oh, well, yeah, this is just natural, and isn't this fun?" And she's like, "No, not loving it at all." Oh, go on.

Gayle: I was in that moment of, I've been doing accounting for 25 years. I'm good at it, but I don't love it. It's just this job that I go to every day. And God, I did everything that I could to make it more palatable, and it just was not. And I didn't know until I knew, right? I didn't have any idea that organizing was coming down the track to find me. I didn't start my work until I was 45. So I was a late bloomer. I've always been organized. I was doing it when I was a little kid, but it never gelled as a business idea for me until I was in my middle ages, right? And so it wasn't that I was watching that path come down the road towards me. I had no clue until I had a clue.

Gayle: And so I remember being very, very discouraged with, this can't be my life. I cannot be doing this for the rest of my life. I am not happy doing this all the time. It makes me crazy. But I didn't know what else to do, and eventually it appeared for me, and I've been grateful for that moment ever since. Because there's a difference between doing what you're good at and doing what you love to do. And I now know the difference: this is really a passion for me instead of a skill that I have. I mean, I have the skill, but it is a passion that I enjoy every day. And even when the day sucks, I still go back to it thinking it's a good day.

There's a difference between doing what you're good at and doing what you love to do.

Kathi: Yeah. And what you said there leads me to something that I think a lot whenever I work with my entrepreneurial clients: your skills are generally what I say a God gift. And generally your skills are something that you really enjoy doing. So if you have the skill set that also makes you happy when you do it, then that's your golden ticket right there to whatever business you want to start.

Gayle: Right. Exactly. That's totally it. And it's what will keep you going as you try and fail, try and fail, try and fail. You still love doing it, and you're going to keep trying to hit it until you get the sweet spot that works for you. And absolutely, you need that passion to fuel you past, right?

Kathi: That's right. You gotta feel it. And that's what keeps you energized as you're going through a business, because there are always stumbling blocks. And the question is, how do you keep your energy when you're feeling like, ugh? Can't you just go back to what you started your business to begin with and see if you're still doing that, or if you got waylaid by a bunch of other stuff? Like you're not delegating out the QuickBooks, you're not delegating out the tech stuff. At the beginning of my career, I couldn't delegate out my tech stuff, and I'm terrible at it. I can't do it. So now that I have a team that does it, I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm free. All I have to do is talk." Yay.

Gayle: Yeah. Exactly. That's 100% true. I couldn't do it without my tech guy either, because all the stuff that happens is all stuff he does in the back end. I just show up and talk.

Kathi: Yeah. Totally right. And the beautiful thing is that we're helping those people as entrepreneurs do what they love to do.

Gayle: Absolutely.

Kathi: The tech wizard loves tech. She just lives for it. So it's like, yay, someone likes to do it. Not me. Not me. Thank God. Well, Gayle, this has been such a pleasure speaking with you, and I really, really appreciate your time and giving us some insight into what it's like to jump off that corporate America bridge. And obviously you've done it, right? You are the Clutter Fairy. So thank you.

Gayle: Thank you. Appreciate you.

Kathi: Take care of yourself, and thank you so much for being on the show.

Gayle: Of course. Thank you.

Kathi: Okay, bye.