Is Entrepreneurship Right for Me?

JEMMA SBEG: So, I graduated back in 2021 and was like, I’m going to be a consultant. Got this great job. At the time, it was my dream job, was super excited and was there for about a year and a half.

ELAINY MATA: This is Jemma Sbeg, the creator and host of the hip podcast The Psychology of your 20’s. Jemma had been a consultant. But when we talked to her, she had just quit that job to focus on her passion project, making her podcast. We talked to her as she started her first full day as a podcaster, which is a job title she hadn’t anticipated for herself.

JEMMA SBEG: The first year and a half, I really didn’t have any listeners. I didn’t really have any external reinforcement, but I think that that made me love it even more. And as things got more popular and suddenly I had so many listeners, it was actually really overwhelming. I didn’t really know how to cope because I was like, I’m just this small town girl who lives in Australia, and suddenly all these businesses and all these people are reaching out to me.

ELAINY MATA: For Jemma, juggling a full-time job and a growing podcast was just too much. But leaving her 9:00 to 5:00 life behind to work for herself carried real financial risks, and it also was a huge change in the way that she was living and working. What if she left the office behind only to end up broke and less happy? You quit, which is brave as hell. Are you scared of anything?

JEMMA SBEG: Oh my gosh, yes.

ELAINY MATA: Welcome to New Here, honest conversations and practical advice to help you play the game called work. I’m Elainy Mata. This week we wrap up our first season with a question that so many of us are grappling with, should I quit the corporate life that may not feel right for me and pursue my passion project? So, some people can take this kind of risk, especially if you don’t have a lot of financial responsibilities, but you still may be worried about stability and what your future is going to look like with less of a roadmap. There’s a whole list of questions and uncertainties you might need to consider before making that huge decision, which is why we wanted to hear about it from Jemma. As she began her journey. We talked to her way back in May, literally on the first day she started working for herself. She told us how she made the decision to leave her job and how she planned for her transition, including dealing with some real fears about how she would pay her bills and battle loneliness. Then, we went back to Jemma five months after she started working for herself, because we wanted to find out which of her fears were warranted, how she created new structures for herself, and if she is really happier on her own. One more thing, keep in mind that this is just one person’s story. Taking the corporate versus entrepreneurship route is a personal decision. Today, our goal is to help you think through the possibilities and trade-offs as we learn from Jemma’s experiences. Okay, let’s dive in with Jemma and hear more about what her corporate job was like and why she wanted to leave.

JEMMA SBEG: If you’ve worked in consulting people out there listening or in the world, you’ll know that 9:00 to 5:00 is not your hours. If I worked 9:00 to 5:00, that was a really good day. So I was essentially squeezing in this side project, this passion that I had in those spare hours of my day when I was exhausted, when I would really prefer to go and see my friends or just do something chill like watch TV. And it was a lot of work, but it was I think like a labor of love.

ELAINY MATA: I can empathize with that. So full disclosure, I also have a passion project on the side other than work. I’m a musician. I compose music. I arrange music. I do it for myself and I do it for others. I love music. And I read this tweet that’s like, if you can put in 9:00 to 5:00, then you can put in your 5:00 to 10:00 for a side hustle. And it’s like, yes, but damn, that’s a lot of working in one day. When am I going to actually chill? But it’s definitely a labor of love because you’re like, this is a lot of work, but I really like doing it. So I wonder, when did that thought start to leave working for somebody else to work for yourself?

JEMMA SBEG: Honestly, only the start of the year. So what is it now? It’s May.

ELAINY MATA:  Of this year?

JEMMA SBEG: Of this year. Yeah.

ELAINY MATA: Wow.

JEMMA SBEG: I fully was like, I was going for promotions at my old job. I was investing in that culture, and I did love the community at my old job. It was quite sad to leave, but I was like, I’m going to make it to manager, then I’m going to be a director, and then I’m going to be a principal at this firm, and this podcast thing will just follow along with me. And I have to give a shout-out. I think I was very lucky where I had an agent from the US reach out to me. Her name’s Shelby. I didn’t even know that an agent for a podcaster was a thing, and she really was someone who understands the industry, really believed in me. And she was really like, “No, what you have here is really special and this can be something really big. I’m going to show you where everything is, and I’m going to show you how the ropes work.” And I started working with her in October last year, and then she was efficient. By January, she convinced me that I could quit. This could be my full-time job.

ELAINY MATA: So, I have a few more questions about this newness of being out of your job. How was your first day of freedom, of not going in and following that structure?

JEMMA SBEG: It was a little bit lonely actually. And also, it was so funny, I had a meeting yesterday, and I was super late to it because I didn’t put it in my calendar. Because I’m used to having things on Teams and it pops up being like, “You have a meeting in 15 minutes.” Does it do that on your computer where it’s like…

ELAINY MATA: Yeah, yeah. It’ll give you five minutes. It’ll remind me.

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah, literally. And I was like, oh, I need to start using Google Calendar because my work life is now also my personal life. They’re not separate. I need to organize this as one. Because previously it was like, yes, no, sorry friend or sorry person, I cannot meet with you during the hours of 9:00 to 5:00 because I’m working, and now it’s like, oh, I can meet with you during those hours, but suddenly, I have to remember that I’m doing that. I’m not just sitting down for this discreet period just to work and not be distracted.

ELAINY MATA: Wow. Ooh, that’ll be tough. That’ll be interesting.

JEMMA SBEG: And it was before. It was before, but I think more from in somewhat of a deficit. It was more that I was giving up on… A big motivator for me for quitting was the fact that I didn’t have any work-life balance. So it’s interesting that I said to you my first day was kind of lonely when I was also very lonely when I was working full-time and doing the show on the side because I didn’t have any time to see my friends. I would make so many sacrifices of being like, “I am sorry, I can’t hang out.” I was canceling all the time. God bless my friends for putting up with me. But every second thing I’d be like, “I got an episode due. I got a meeting. I got to write.” So I think that is one of those things where it has already intersected with my personal life a little bit. And also I’ve become friends with people in the industry, but I’m interested to see whether this consumes my entire identity and whether it consumes my entire life. And I have a feeling it might.

ELAINY MATA: I have that same fear. My brother was talking to me about it too, that he’s like, “I’m afraid of doing something that I love full-time, and then it becomes something that I hate because I’m doing it full-time.”

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah, and it’s interesting that you say that because I do think that the idea that it could become something that is just work to me is scary, but I don’t think that that is a fear that should hold me back. I think we hear a lot more about people who are disappointed that they work their 9:00 to 5:00 to the day they die than people who say they’re disappointed because they followed their dream.

ELAINY MATA: Yeah. So I’m so curious because you have an episode talking about the psychology of the 9:00 to 5:00. And now it’s not a 9:00 to 5:00, it may be an extended hour. How do you think you will be affected by that change? There’s so many things that are going to affect… It’s going to be the schedule change. It’s going to be you making decisions for yourself.

JEMMA SBEG: Okay, I’m going to answer this question at a surface level about what’s going to change about my day-to-day. I think firstly, the increased flexibility is going to be so good for my mental health. Obviously, I think that I’ve already seen that I’m working extended hours, probably longer than I do normally work at my 9:00 to 5:00, but not longer than I worked when I was working my 9:00 to 5:00 and I was working, doing this podcast. It’s still a win. But the thing is that it just provides a lot of flexibility to be like, okay, I want to go for a walk in the middle of the day. I never used to be able to do that. I never used to be able to say, “I’m going to take two hours and go for a hike.” I know that I can come back at 5:00 and I can just work an extra two hours until 7:00 or until 8:00 to make up for that. And that’s my decision. And that flexibility I think is so important, but it exists on this weird spectrum of giving up structure. So it’s like there’s a balancing system here, because when you have too much flexibility, your consistency goes out the window, it’s a lot harder to motivate yourself, things can kind of run away from you. But of course, when you have too much structure, you don’t have enough creative freedom, you don’t have enough time to balance your life and to focus on your mental health and to focus on the things that are important to you. So structure was one of the things that I was most scared of giving up actually. It’s really nice to have a place to go every day. Go to an office. You know everyone there. They know you. They become your friends. You spend 10 hours a day with them. You have breakfast, lunch, sometimes even dinner with them, at least at my work that’s kind of what it was like. So giving up that structure of having someone to tell me what I need to do, having someone tell me if I’m meeting their expectations or not, having people to be around all the time, having community, giving that up is going to be difficult. I think that’s the thing that’s going to impact my overall psychological well-being is that adjustment to spending more time alone and spending more time isolated. That’s my biggest concern.

ELAINY MATA: Wow, that’s real. I didn’t even think about the lack of structure or the structure that you’d be losing in that, but I think that’s a comfort zone for sure, because you’ve been told what to do this entire time and even how to do it. And now you have this, you, Jemma, have the freedom to create your own structure, which is really fricking cool.

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah. Elainy, what’s your dream there? Do you have a timeline for when you’d like to do music full-time?

ELAINY MATA: That’s a really good question.

JEMMA SBEG: I want to know.

ELAINY MATA: That’s a really good question. I don’t know. I guess nobody has asked me that. Thank you, Jemma. Nobody’s asked me that before. That’s awesome.

JEMMA SBEG: Well, it’s a good thing to think about. Well, I hope you think about it.

ELAINY MATA: I guess I never thought about the timeline because I have a little girl. She’s two years old, so I’m thinking more about security and benefits and health insurance, which that’s a very Western way to think. Those are my fears. Those fears kind of bring me back. So I’m curious for you, you’ve done it. You quit, which is brave as hell. Good for you. Congratulations. Are you scared of anything?

JEMMA SBEG: Oh my gosh, yes. Yes. And also, I firstly want to acknowledge what you’ve said. I’m very privileged. I live in Australia and we’re all set here. There’s a few other safety nets that could catch me before I fell. That’s a big part. Not to make it political, but that’s a big part of it. I can’t imagine doing this in the US where I had to pay for health insurance. I don’t pay for health insurance here. It’s free. That would be so scary to me. And also, I don’t have children, and obviously that changes the whole dynamic. So sometimes I do feel like I need to a caveat instead of sitting here and being like, everyone can quit their full-time job. I don’t think that’s what I’m trying to say. I think that it’s just a nice piece of inspiration to be like, okay, it can be done, not that it necessarily has to be done. But also, yeah, I’m terrified. I’m really terrified.

ELAINY MATA: What are you afraid of?

JEMMA SBEG: Get vulnerable of it all ending, of it all coming crashing down. The numbers start dropping, and suddenly there’s no one again. And I’ve gotten used to this level of praise and this level of interaction and this level of listenership, and it will be a really sharp drop.

ELAINY MATA: Coming up after the break, we’ll look at the aftermath of Jemma’s decision to quit. What actually happens when your passion project becomes your full-time job? Be right back. Okay, so we talked about the reasons Jemma left her job, what she was worried about, and we also heard all the excitement she was feeling as she started out on her own self-employment journey. We waited five months, and then we called her back to see how everything was going. And unfortunately for Jemma, since there’s a huge time difference between the US and Australia, she had to get up at 5:30 AM to talk to us. So we appreciate her.

JEMMA SBEG: So good to see you.

ELAINY MATA: Likewise.

JEMMA SBEG: When you have those alarms, they’re like, this is the final alarm.

ELAINY MATA: This is, “you have to wake up.”

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah, that was it for this morning. It was like, get out of bed, but luckily I didn’t even need it, so we get together.

ELAINY MATA: Thank you for waking up so early and talking to us. I really appreciate it. I’m so excited to talk to you. So how has the past couple of months been like for you?

JEMMA SBEG: Oh, my goodness, a bit of a roller coaster, which I’m sure we’ll get into. Overall positive outcome. I’m feeling amazing, doing amazing. I cannot envision myself going back to my 9:00 to 5:00 job. It was like, I just can’t imagine that happening.

ELAINY MATA: So, what about this new lifestyle, I guess, or this new structure do you like the most?

JEMMA SBEG: I think the main one, which everyone points out, is the flexibility. It’s so incredibly freeing to not have to live within the constraints of the hours of 9:00 to 5:00. And now it’s like, okay, I am in charge of how much I work and what I produce and the output. So, I can always just work harder during the week or work harder for a couple of weeks or a couple of months to give myself that time off. An example is right now I’m in a bit of a crunch period because I’m coming to the US in November. I don’t want to have to do too much recording or any recording whilst I’m over there, so let me just do an extra episode a week, bank them for when I go overseas, and I essentially get an extra month off, which I think is so incredibly liberating and I’m very grateful to have that kind of flexibility in my life.

ELAINY MATA: Yeah. I think we talked about in the last time is this structure that you would have in your 9:00 to 5:00 where you’re working for somebody else, the structure is set up for you. And now that you’re working for yourself, you have to create your own structure. How has that been like to create this new time stamping for you throughout the day? Are you still figuring out what works, or have you already figured it out?

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah, it’s interesting because that was the one thing I was like, oh, I think I might struggle with this. I think the main thing that I’ve realized is that every day is going to look really different. Right now I’m talking to you guys, it’s like 5:30 AM. That’s not typical. And then another day I’ll have a meeting. I have meetings throughout the day, but then the evenings through. All of these different things crop up. So how I more think about it is time stamping the week and being like, there are specific tasks that need to be done each week. And I’ve realized that certain tasks work best on a particular day. So with my podcast, I release on Tuesdays and Fridays, so writing episodes on Wednesdays and Thursdays works best for me. Because then I give myself Friday morning to record next week’s episode or Sunday evening to record the next week’s episodes. So I think that’s the main thing. I really struggled with it at first. I think also then I went a little bit ham. I went a bit to the extreme.

ELAINY MATA: Oh, how?

JEMMA SBEG: Well, something I realized I think is that no one’s going to care about your work as much as you do.

ELAINY MATA: Fair.

JEMMA SBEG: You know what I mean? No one’s going to be in your ear being like, “Work harder. Work harder. Work harder. You have to achieve this. You have to achieve this.” You’re the only one who’s really going to do that for yourself. And I think when I first started working for myself, there was a period of a month where I was like, I need to be working every single day excessively to the max in order to make this worth it, I guess. And I don’t necessarily think that was a terrible thing. Definitely wasn’t sustainable though I think in any facet of life to be doing that.

ELAINY MATA: So, I’m really interested in the community aspect. So when you go into work, you have your people that sit around you in your desk that you talk to, and you have people to bounce ideas off of. And now that you’re working for yourself, what does that equivalent look like for you now? Is there an equivalent?

JEMMA SBEG: Actually, there is. It was quite lonely up until only probably a couple months ago. Also, just the nature of the thing that I do now is that it’s a very solitary activity. You can’t really have someone sitting next to you having a chat while you’re trying to record 40 minute, hour long episodes. So I don’t really see anyone throughout the day. And then I actually met these two girls who run a podcast called Two Broke Chicks who are incredible. And we went out for lunch and we sat down. And we were chatting, we’re chatting, we’re chatting, and then one of them just goes to me, “Can I ask you a question?” And I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” And she was like, “Are you just incredibly lonely at the moment?” And I was like, “Yeah, I totally am,” and she was like, “We are as well.”

ELAINY MATA: Wow!

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah, and they’re like, “We are as well.” And I was like, “Why don’t we get an office space?” And literally between having that conversation, we had an office space within a week. Someone was just subletting their office for two days a week, and so we just were like, let’s do it. We invited a bunch of other creators who work at the podcasting space who we thought might benefit from it. And now we have our own little office and it’s so lovely. It’s all women in their 20s and 30s working in this kind of audio sphere of entertainment, and we get to share frustrating things and when our mics don’t work and when the reaction to an episode has been bad or when an ad partner is being difficult. So it’s really amazing. It’s something I was really excited to talk to you about.

ELAINY MATA: That’s really cool and how quickly that was set up. Now I’m curious of what parts of your former working life have you brought with you in your current working life? One, I’ve noticed is just having this office space. Is there anything else that you’ve also borrowed?

JEMMA SBEG: Honestly, on the spot, not much else. Not much else. No, it’s interesting. I don’t really use LinkedIn as much anymore. I’m tapped out of that professional space in the traditional sense, and the work I’m doing is always work that I want to do. And I think what was the main reason that I think always struggled with working in a corporate space was I would put in all these hours, all this effort, I would sacrifice time with friends, time with family, time to myself. It just felt like, oh my goodness, why am I putting in all this time to a goal, a dream, a vision that I don’t necessarily believe in? And now it’s this beautiful thing where it’s like, well, every single hour feels like it’s well-spent.

ELAINY MATA: Yeah, and I think that ties into the work-life balance is you are enjoying what you’re doing, but I wonder if work-life balance still exists if you love what you’re doing.

JEMMA SBEG: This is so interesting because I was talking to my partner about this the other day and his parents were like, “Oh, does Jemma work the same hours as you?” And he is a solicitor. And they were like, “Does she work the same hours as you?” And he was like, “Oh, probably more because she’s always on the clock almost,” especially with the social media element as well nowadays. And it really made me realize, I was like, oh, is that how people see me operating? Do I actually not have work-life balance? Am I on my phone too much? Am I checking my emails too much? But I think also he was right in that it’s a lot easier to do overtime when you love something, especially since the podcast for me used to be a hobby. It used to be what I would do in my free time. It used to be and it still is the thing that I greatly, greatly enjoy as a emotional creative outlet. So I still want to do that all the time. It’s just about being like, no, this is also a job now. This is also work. So you can do it all the time, but it’s not going to really leave a lot of space for other things. So now it’s about being like, okay, let’s make sure we have hard cutoffs. I try and protect my weekends. That was a big thing.

ELAINY MATA: Yeah, that’s your boundary. Ooh, I’m curious what your boundaries are. So not working on weekends.

JEMMA SBEG: Not working on weekends. Another one that I’m trying to do is not checking emails or social media to do with the podcast first thing in the morning. I think also an element of that is maybe this is like… So not working on weekends, not checking my phone. My God, I’m realizing I have no boundaries. That’s literally it.

ELAINY MATA: That can change.

JEMMA SBEG: That’s literally it. You’re really illuminating perhaps what is a problem here.

ELAINY MATA: My bad.

JEMMA SBEG: I have two boundaries and they’re very loose.

ELAINY MATA: We’re human. We can adapt. We can change. That’s all. So that leads me to another question of, do you still love this job even now that it’s become your full-time? It’s now a job. It’s not a side hustle. It’s not a hobby. It’s a job. Do you still love it?

JEMMA SBEG: Someone said this to me the other day and I loved it. They were like, when you take your hobby and make it your career, the only people who can do that are the people who love their hobby like 150%. Because making it your job, it’s going to rob you of that 50%. It’s going to make you love it 50% less. So if you still want to love it at 100%, you’ve got to really fricking love it. And I totally agree with that, because I think I used to love it like 150%, and now I love it like 100%. I still absolutely adore it, and I would not be doing anything else. My sense of purpose is so profound. I still feel like a real commitment to it. I still enjoy every part of the process.

ELAINY MATA: So I wanted to ask you about money and the money component about working for yourself. How are you handling the financial aspect now? What does that look like?

JEMMA SBEG: I think it’s a bit more stressful. It’s very stressful, which I maybe will surprise people, I don’t know, but I’m sure it won’t. It’s a bit stressful because you don’t have that long-term financial security that I think a full-time job often gives you. But what I’m realizing is that a lot of my friends have been recently laid off, especially in the tech space over here. They’ve managed to find new jobs. It’s not like it’s really safe anywhere. You know what I mean? I still think it’s worth the risk to do that, but it definitely is a long-term financial stability thing where I’m like, okay, I am stressing about where I’ll be in three years. And in three years if I’m still doing this, I would’ve been out of the traditional workplace for three years. So what if I do need to find another job or thinking about things like, do I go and rent a bigger house or rent a bigger apartment with the income I have now? But what if I don’t have that income in eight months? Or do I buy a house? That’s a huge thing, but it’s like, what if I can’t pay the mortgage in five years because I bought this house when I was making steady income from this thing and now I no longer have that income? So I think it is the fickleness sometimes of this industry. I literally just recently got a financial advisor.

ELAINY MATA: Nice.

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah. It’s also just things like around taxes and all that kind of stuff. I tried to do it myself, but all my income is foreign income from the US.

ELAINY MATA: Oh yeah. Definitely confusing to do on your own.

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah. Or you get these tiny little micropayments from $3 from people donating to your Patreon. So it’s just all these tiny little transactions that need to be accounted for so that I don’t commit tax fraud because I would like to not go to prison. It’s just a bit of a learning process. It is actually a big tip if you’re thinking about quitting your 9:00 to 5:00, get an accountant if you don’t already have one or a financial advisor or just anyone.

ELAINY MATA: I have a financial advisor too. I haven’t talked to him in a while, but maybe I should.

JEMMA SBEG: Maybe you should.

ELAINY MATA: Maybe I should. So how has your sense of self changed since you left working for somebody else?

JEMMA SBEG: Yeah. I think the big one is, and maybe this isn’t a positive, but I have a lot more imposter syndrome since working for myself. Yeah, 100%, which sounds so counterintuitive. Yeah, well, I think it’s this thing. It’s like you’re further into the belly of the beast, so you have more things to doubt. So that’s kind of why I feel that way because I’m like, oh, there’s more… Previously, I could detach myself and be like, oh, this is my real job and this is just my hobby. This is my side hustle. I don’t care if people don’t think I belong here. I don’t care if it isn’t amazing every single time because it’s just fun. And now it’s like, oh, you best believe that I care because this is not just a hobby. It’s also how I pay my bills. It’s also a massive source of my identity. I think it is a little bit difficult. And I often am like, what am I doing here? The social comparison is insane. I’m really trying to work on it. Not so much like a competitive sense, but more of like a, oh my God, I’m not doing as much as they’re doing. I should be doing more. It’s like, oh, that episode’s really amazing. How come I didn’t think about that? Because I’m not meant to be here. I’m a fraud. This is a mistake.

ELAINY MATA: I’m so wrapped on this imposter syndrome thing because I think it’s really real, and I appreciate you for being honest about it when you do feel like you start to compare yourself to other people that are doing the same thing that you’re doing. What has helped you get yourself out of that headspace and bring yourself back to this core of I’m Jemma and I’m really doing the damn thing?

JEMMA SBEG: So, I just think about it in the sense of the times that I haven’t had an audience or will not have an audience. So I think about it before anyone listened and how fulfilling it was, and that I would still be doing this even if there was no one out there who really cared about it. And then I think about what it would be like, what it’s going to be like in 50 years when podcasts are replaced by, I don’t know, nanobots in our brain telling us secret messages. I think about it in 50 years and when I’m sure the podcast will no longer be running, and I think about whether I’ll be proud of the content that I put out, because I won’t remember I think how many downloads each episode got or X, Y, and Z. What I will remember is like, oh, was this something that I was really proud to put out and was this something that I would listen to? Sorry, one final thing is just like, maybe this is an Australian thing, but believe fully in the idea of staying in your own lane. It’s like, oh, they stay in their own lane. They just do their own thing. They’re just going down the freeway at their speed. So I think the social comparison thing really was getting to my head. So it was like, all right, let’s mute, unfollow, remove these people that make you feel like you’re not doing enough and if you stay in your own lane. Just keep pretending that there’s no one else on the freeway. There’s no one else on the highway. You’re just going your own speed. What speed would you be going on the freeway if you didn’t know how fast the other cars were going? And it’s kind of like, go that speed. Do you know what I mean?

ELAINY MATA: Yeah, I like that, and I like this advice of unfollowing people that start to warp the way that you’re seeing yourself. Because one advice that I’ve been getting, and even with the networking episode that we just did, is follow these people who inspire you and that are doing the work that you want to do and watch how they’re doing it. And I’m in that same boat of it’s hard to look at them and be like, ugh, why can’t I do something like that? I’ve been trying to change the narrative in my head of like, wow, I really liked how they did that. I wonder how I could do that in a different or in my own way and just really utilize them as inspiration.

JEMMA SBEG: That’s actually really interesting because I hadn’t thought of that.

ELAINY MATA: This is such an exciting conversation. Because like I said, this is something that goes through my head all the time. I’m just curious, now that you have dipped your toes in both worlds, what would you say to anyone who is thinking of doing what you just did?

JEMMA SBEG: Honestly, the one thing I would say is that it’s 100% worth it. The risk is 100% worth it. And I can only speak from my personal experience, obviously, but I’m so glad that I went through those moments of feeling really uncomfortable and really unsure and even continue to this day to feel that way because the benefit and upside of that is so much more beautiful. You have all of this time to do something you really love.

ELAINY MATA: Is there anything that you wish you knew before starting this journey?

JEMMA SBEG: Be prepared for days where you wish for the comfort of the 9:00 to 5:00. It’s like a breakup. It’s that you still miss the previous security. Yeah, you don’t miss the relationship. And then with time you feel better, you meet new people, and everything falls into place.

ELAINY MATA: So no regrets.

JEMMA SBEG: No regrets.

ELAINY MATA: No regrets.

JEMMA SBEG: Hopefully you know where that’s from or I’ve just like…

ELAINY MATA: Yeah, yeah, I do know where that’s from. I thought it was Novogratz. Jemma, this has been so much fun, and I’m so glad to hear how everything turned out. And that even through the scary parts, it’s really still all fun and worth it and exciting. This was definitely the right decision for you, and it shows.

JEMMA SBEG: Thank you so much.

ELAINY MATA: That’s Jemma Sbeg, creator and host of The Psychology of your 20s Podcast. New episodes drop twice a week. I really love her episode on career anxiety. It’s number 133, so check it out. So here’s what I’m taking away from this episode. Number one, if you’re working for yourself, you have to make your own community. Jemma reached out to other podcasters and they ultimately created their own coworking space. This takes me back to our networking episode earlier in the season. When you’re working for yourself, you got to get out there and build relationships in your industry. It will help you find future opportunities and get the advice that you need, and you might feel less lonely too. Number two, if you’re going to work for yourself, you may need expert advice on how to manage your money. Get a financial advisor to help you plan your future finances and get an accountant to do your taxes if you can afford it. And number three, this is my favorite piece of advice from Jemma. If you’re going to make your passion your full-time job, make sure you really love it, because you might need to be prepared to love it a little less when it becomes something you have to do. Y’all, this is our last episode of the season. Yay, but also, aw. We worked really hard on these episodes, and I hope they made a difference for you. We’re going to take a break, but don’t you worry, we have a couple of treats for you coming up soon. So, stay tuned to the feed for updates on new episodes. While we’re away, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for early career professionals. You’ll get weekly essays, articles, and other recommendations. Sign up at hbr.org/newsletters. And keep sharing your work questions and stories with us. We’ll be looking for new episode ideas and we love hearing from you. Our email is newhere@hbr.org. If you liked what you heard in this first season, follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And did you know that Harvard Business Review has more podcasts to help you manage your business and your career? Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Hannah Bates, Anne Saini, and me, Elainy Mata. Our editor is Mary Dooe, and our engineer is Tina Tobey Mack. Supervising editors are Maureen Hoch and Paige Cohen. Ian Fox manages podcasts at HBR. Special thanks to some of our colleagues who helped make this show possible, Madeline Johnson, Kelsey Alpaio, Scott LaPierre, Yulia Baz, Karen Player, and Anne Bartholomew. And our theme song was composed by Graz de Oliviera. Okay, everybody, see you later. Bye!