I’m not a gambler in the conventional “oh yeah, Vegas baby!,” sort of way at all. Nor do I care much for the lottery either. But if you live in the U.S. or follow American news at all, it was hard to not hear that one of the big national lotteries just paid out a $2 billion dollar prize to one person in California. To me, waking up to that amount of cake is unfathomable. Whoever won must have a lot of things on their mind right about now.

In my little corner of the universe, I’ve thankfully none of those concerns. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing on my mind. Below are fifteen relatively random thoughts that have been bumping around in my head for a while now. I’ve categorized them into three groups of five:

I now know I got these right

1. I need to do something different. The work was the same – meaningful, impactful, and focused on community. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. That feeling had been building since before the global pandemic. All the two years of unplanned remote work did was push me over the decision line. If I couldn’t be fully committed it was time to do something else.
2. I need to do my own thing. “What exactly?” That was the question. I knew to my core that what I wanted to do, I needed to do on my own. I was ready to reinvest of myself, but this time, in myself.
3. I won’t miss the office. And I’ll get to continue working from my home. After two years of pandemic forced work, this introvert hadn’t even started to miss the office environment. I thought working from home would be great, and it is.
4. I’m better prepared. “Am I really ready though?” That was just me overthinking. I’ve spent the years since my last business planning for this time. I cut my expenditures, got aggressive about saving, created an emergency fund, and kept exploring/refining my talents. I am as ready as ever to start this journey.
5. I’ll figure things out. There are always unknowns. I decided that whatever they were, I’d figure them out. My solutions haven’t always been perfect but thus far, I have in fact, figured things out.

I now know I got these wrong

6. Folks will understand what I do. My business makes so much sense, in my head. Others however struggle a bit with the details. But that’s not their fault. I’ve always believed that if I’m trying to promote an idea or approach it’s not on others to understand, it’s on me to help them see. This is what innovation and leadership looks like. So, there’s much more work left to do here.
7. Transitioning to my own thing won’t be hard. Never underestimate the challenge of ingrained habit. I did, and it seems I fight little battles with it every day. This will take more time.
8. I’ll get more work done. “I feel like I didn’t make any progress today.” The truth is, I probably did but in an incremental way. The last few months have really challenged my sense of being productive. Sometimes the baby steps of progress belong to a really, really small baby.
9. I already have everything I need. Nope. And this realization wasn’t just an excuse to buy stuff I wanted or that seemed cool to have. I’m not spendy that way. But there were holes in my toolbox. I just hadn’t seen them.
10. I’ve something to prove. “I’ll show them!” Who exactly them was still is unclear. This thought was taking up space in my head for no good reason. Because if I really needed to prove anything to anybody, that anybody should have been myself.

I’m really not sure about these at all

11. This revenue stream will dominate. Knowledge and past experience taught me to make sure I set about developing multiple streams of income. However, which one will ultimately dominate is still a very open question. I’m intentionally doing something different this time around. So, I’ll need to keep pushing forward and pay attention to what opportunities start to push back the hardest.
12. No employees. I thought I felt very strongly about this. I still do but maybe not as strongly as I thought I did.
13. I’ve worked my last job. I hope this is true. I know I’m committed to this being true, buutttt…
14. I’ve a solid network. I think. We’ll see. I do know that I’ve been intentional about nurturing the network I already have and building upon it. I believe strongly that if I do this well, I’ll be fine.
15. It’s going to work. My last business was profitable right out of the box. All the way up until it wasn’t. This time, I’m a bit smarter. So, maybe. I’m confident but you never know for sure.

Well, those are a few of the thoughts floating around in my head. What’s taking up space in yours? Which were you right about and where did you get it wrong? While these sort of thoughts certainly aren’t the those of a newly minted lottery billionaire, as far as our businesses are concerned, they’re just as important.

Take care, and do good.