The Modern LeadHer Way

[116] Money, Structure, And The Realities Of Going Solo

• Emma Clayton • Season 4 • Episode 116

Share episode

Send us a text

Ever wondered what really happens after you trade a steady salary for your own name on the invoice? We go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the two biggest shifts most people underestimate: money and time. I share what it felt like to move from guaranteed paydays to a “bills day,” how my spending habits evolved from store cards to five-figure coaching investments, and why redefining “enough” changed everything about how I build and scale. We talk break-even math, overhead creep, and the moment you realise that bigger revenue can demand bigger monthly fuel just to keep the engine running.

I dig into diversification as a form of self-protection-testing additional income streams only when they align with my values - and the mindset shift that turned selling into service. When you’ve seen clients transform, not making an offer starts to feel like avoiding your duty of care. That reframe removes the awkwardness around price and replaces it with integrity, clarity, and confidence. We explore how ROI shows up beyond spreadsheets in the form of courage, better boundaries, and higher-leverage choices.

Then we get practical with time. Corporate structure disappears overnight, and what replaces it has to be intentional. I share the simple anchors that keep me focused - personal training, dog walks, short creative sprints - and the permission to stop chasing eight-hour days for the sake of it. The early stage often means wearing every hat: finance, marketing, sales, delivery, brand. Learning enough to lead and delegate later is part of the journey, and the variety can be energising if you set smart guardrails. The tradeoff is real: less certainty, more autonomy. The upside is powerful: freedom to design your week, choose your clients, and build work that fits your life.

Thinking about a move or already in the messy middle? Press play for a clear-eyed look at money, structure, and the choices that shape a sustainable business. If something resonates, message me on Instagram at emmaclayton.xo, subscribe for the next deep dive on identity shifts, and share this episode with someone who needs a truthful nudge. Your review helps more women find the courage to create work on their terms.

Get Your FREE Success Roadmap: https://www.emmaclaytonxo.com

✨ Join the waitlist to hear about the Next Time Out Retreat
https://www.emmaclaytonxo.com/f/retreat-waitlist

Join us in the Secret LeadHer Files: https://www.emmaclaytonxo.com/courses/secret-files

Book your Game Plan here: https://www.emmaclaytonxo.com/courses/game-plan

Subscribe to the video podcast and watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Q8bQIq6BaPnRh5mht8E_Cxa8nn5SJ3Q

Connect with me & become part of the listener community on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmaclayton.xo/

SPEAKER_01:

This is The Modern Lead A Way, a podcast for ambitious driven career women who want to feel good on the way to the job.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm Emma Clayton and I'll be sharing with you tangible advice to help you stop sacrificing your soul in the name of success and experience more balance, confidence, and fulfilment both in and out of work.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome back to the Modern Leader Way with me, Emma. Where I am busy reflecting this week on my eight-year anniversary since I left the corporate world after 20 years. 20 years. I left school at 18, walked into that company, and I was there 20 years later, having worked my way up and around the organisation and finally taking redundancy at the age of 38. And that was yeah, eight years ago. Eight years ago, I can't quite fathom how eight years have passed. And in some senses, it feels like it was only, you know, last year, and in many senses it feels like a very long distant memory to think back to the version of me that was showing up for work every day. So I wanted to give a few truths. I wanted to pull back the curtain on what it's like, what it's really like to transition from being employed to being your own boss. That we don't talk about enough. I'm actually gonna break this up into two parts. So today I'm gonna talk about two things I think that fundamentally shifts when you go from being employed to self-employed, and that is around money, no surprises, and about time and structure. Next week, I really want to go deeper into some of the identity shifts, some of the things that have had to change from you know what made me successful in corporate to what will make me successful ongoing in my own business. So we'll save that for next week. And for this week, let's talk about money. Because this is something that I have bought to the podcast, don't get me wrong. Um, I've had Julia more recently talking about, you know, the importance of money management. I've had a lot of talk on here about redefining wealth and not just being about money, but being about health and freedom and lifestyle and really designing it in a way that feels good for you. Designing it in the way that only you can design it because it's the way you were meant to come here and lead your life, right? That's ultimately what we want to do. So, yeah, let's let's dive in, shall we? Let's talk about money. So, for me, I had always had a relatively comfortable life when it came to money. But it's only now that I'm not getting a monthly salary that I see actually how my relationship with money wasn't actually that healthy. Whilst I was earning well for my age, like even in my 20s, I was earning pretty well. By then I had got into this habit of perhaps spending beyond my means. As soon as I was able to get catalogues, I used to get the Freeman's catalog, I used to have three or four catalogues, and I used to spend money on all of it, and I used to get my commission back, my commission checks at the end of the year, and I used to pay it off over 12 months or whatever it was, interest free. And then as soon as I was old enough, I got some store cards. So I had a Debenham store cards, a Dorothy Perkins store card, and I'd spend on that, and again, I would I would pay it off every month when I got paid. So this cycle began when I was very young, 16, 17. Um, I'd always had a job, started a Saturday job when I was 13. The main shift is you go from receiving an a monthly salary and an annual bonus in some cases, in my case, to receiving nothing, like nothing certain. Okay, so you go from certainty every month that you're gonna get, even if your bank account is at zero or in your overdraft on the day before you get paid, you are gonna get paid on the 20th of the month, and the money is going to appear and the bills will be covered. I've gone from having a payday to having a bills day because the bills are still there, but actually there is no guaranteed money coming in on the 20th of the month anymore. It was a huge shift, which obviously you anticipate. Now, the flip side of that is actually being your own boss. You can create multiple streams of revenue, of income, and think about all the different ways that you could get money coming in. And therefore, it opens up possibility to receive money on any day, right? So whilst it does come with a bit of a big gulp, it also comes with possibility. So I do want to throw that out there. Now, what I would say is my priorities around money have definitely shifted over time, and it's also revealed to me some of my money problems. So, what I what I can see now as I reflect back on my early years in self-employment was I was still spending in the way that I had always spent. And you know, I came out of corporate with a big redundancy package, and I would say it probably lasted me for a good five years. I did some sensible things with my money, but also I had to live off that money, which is what it's for, right? Um, but it lasted a lot longer than I ever thought it would. And and part, I have to say this, I've said this before on the podcast, you might have heard me say, but one of my senior leaders at the time who thought very highly of me, and I, you know, I thought very highly of him too, he offered me a role to stay, and I I sort of thought about it, and I was like, nah, this is my time to go. Like I've I'm too excited now to leave and go and spread my wings and fly and do my do my own thing. So I took him to lunch and said thanks, but no thanks. And he said to me, you know, most people that take redundancy have spent the money within two years and they're coming back asking for their job. And I was like, Yeah, I'm never gonna do that. I'm never gonna do that. That has always stuck, has become a bit of fuel for me. You know, you could say it's like made me a bit stubborn, um, but it has enabled me to say, no, that's not gonna be me. I'm not gonna have that story. And I didn't. I came out of corporate and I was like, right, to set up my business, I need a coach, I need a business coach, I need to have someone posting content for me, I need to um be paying for this subscription and for this branding photography. I spent a lot of money in those early years. You know, my first coach coming out of corporate was 10 grand. It was a big investment. I'd never invested in myself like that before, but it wasn't in myself, it was in my business. It felt like an easy thing to do. I've since gone on to spend tens of thousands of pounds on coaching, on not just my business, but myself, my person, my own personal development. It's why, you know, I can't sell coaching services if I haven't received them myself and if I don't invest in them myself, in my opinion, because I now know what it's like to be coached. I now know what it's like to be coachable, and I also know what it's like to invest big in myself. You know, when I'm putting down thousands of pounds on my personal development, not only my business development, there is no return on investment in a dollar form, right? It's a inner transformation that I know is gonna have an outer effect, whether that's on how much money I'm able to earn, how much money I'm able to ask for. I know there will be an ROI. It's just not necessarily I'm gonna make X amount of money back on this investment. So I very much could see the habits that were just shifting. So rather than being material things, clothes, things of the house, it was now personal development courses and coaches and one-to-one calls and things that I wanted to have with people because it actually got into this cycle of if I just do this one extra thing, then surely that's going to move me forward. And to be fair, coaching has been a really powerful tool in my toolbox, to be honest. And I've also learned a lot about myself in the process. So I love coaching. I will probably always have a coach in some shape or form. That's why I advocate for other people to have one, right? So so certainly noticed my spending habits were the same, same but different. And actually, you know, when you haven't got that guaranteed income, you can't spend in the same way. In the same sense, my priorities shifted in other ways, right? So I'm no longer traveling with work, going through airports. I wasn't commuting, so I could I instantly save£10,000 before tax on a season ticket. I wasn't going to PRET every day. I was at home more, right? So I didn't need as much money. And this is the great thing for me was the realization that actually I don't need to be earning like six-figure salary because actually, with a six-figure income when you're self-employed, that comes with other things like you've got to be VAT registered and you've got to do your quarterly returns. And I don't really want to be doing that sort of thing. But actually, when you look at it and you look at what bills you've got going out, what what's your monthly minimum to get by, it's way less than we think it is, especially when we're not like gallivanting around the country all the time. Now, of course, we want nice things. We want to be able to go out for meals, we want to be able to travel when we want to, we want to be able to go abroad on the holidays. But actually, when you are your own boss, you can go anytime. You can even work on your holiday if you want. You might have remembered seeing me in Spain in May. I went and did a um a recce of a retreat venue for a timeout retreat that's happening in May next year. And I took myself off on a solo retreat. And you know, part of that was working, part of it was to get away and just have a different change of scene and to get some creativity flowing, which it absolutely ticked that box. I can do that. I don't need to take time off because I take my work with me if I want to. That said, the more money you make through your own business, the more money you need to find consistently, right? And I think this is a very open conversation that I've been in more recently with a f a few coach friends of mine who, you know, who are like, yeah, okay, I'm a six-figure earner. I I my business brings in six figures, multi-six figures a month. But actually, I need to bring in 20 grand a month just to break even. So that machine requires running and it requires money to run it. So now we've gone from, well, I just need 5k a month, let's say, or 3k a month to cover my share of the bills, to ensure I can put diesel in the van, I can um enjoy a takeaway or a meal out once a month and like get by, right? We've gone from needing that to actually needing to find 20k a month just to fuel the machine. So it becomes a choice then, like a choice. Do what like rather than being obsessed with the next pay rise, like am I getting paid enough? My output, it's like actually how much do I want to earn? Because you get to choose, and then you get to create offers and services that are gonna help bring in that money every month. And you get to choose if you want to go bigger, with the very real awareness that actually by going bigger, your output, your expenses are gonna be way higher. Um, I think the other thing with money that's become very apparent to me is you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, really. And you do when you're employed. You are very reliant on that one employer to pay you every month on the 20th of the month, but ultimately you don't have to worry about it. Whereas when you put all your eggs in one basket in business, things can change, you know, overnight. Your reputation can change overnight, for example. Um, I've seen it happen to many a successful entrepreneur in the online world where you know they make one mistake and their reputation is called into question and then everything changes overnight. And then, you know, with the economy changing, people's priorities change. So maybe, you know, people aren't are being a bit more discerning about where they're putting their money when it comes to their own personal development and investing in coaches. So from an early stage, I've been, you know, we we rented out our hut in the garden as an Airbnb, and that's been an extra little income. But there's other things like there's a really exciting thing that I've just invested in to do with AI, and I'm not gonna talk about it here because it's very, very new. And I'm I've jumped on as a very early adopter and I'm excited about it. It's it's a bit of fun, actually, because we don't know where it's gonna go. We don't know if it's gonna actually reap the rewards that we think it it has the potential to, but for very little upfront investment and time, it could potentially create a bit of an income. Then there's other ways I've come across a network marketing opportunity more recently, and I've always turned my nose up at these things because I'm like, oh, I I don't want to plug a product that tends to be overpriced, in my view, if I don't believe in it. Like I've got to back the product, I've got to, I've got to value the product before I sell it, right? Before I put my name to it, before I encourage others to buy into it. Um, but this one in particular is a supplement company, but actually it's not about the products, and the products aren't overpriced, they've kept the price very reasonable, and it's actually more about this kind of financial ecosystem they've created for the members. So those that jump on and pay a monthly membership, which is really low cost, like$9.95 actually. So it's about seven pounds a month. Actually, over time, it's not a it's not a short-term thing, it's a long-term game. But over time, you're gonna start like your money's gonna start coming back and accumulating and compounding. And there is potential for that to earn money in the future. And so I've I've dipped my toe in things like that as well. And if you're interested in that, by all means, drop me a DM and just say opportunity or something like that, and I will tell you about it because it's it's really interesting, like for it to get my attention, you know, it's certainly a different opportunity than what I've heard about up until now. So there's things like that. You want to diversify your um the ways that your money comes in when you're self-employed and not keep all your eggs in one basket. And I think the other thing for me is um, you know, I have had the luxury of a nice redundancy package. Had I not had that, I think I would have definitely returned to employment way sooner because I definitely didn't have the resiliency and the grit that you need when you're self-employed. And it's over time that I have started to feel like my back's a little bit more against the wall. It moves you like nothing else does. In a way, it was a blessing that I had that, and it's afforded me a lot of time to heal, to overcome some of the burnout that I think I was experiencing, to rebuild myself from the ground up and to really take the time to understand myself and who I am. And I think that's probably the last thing I will say on money is if you've never had to ask for a sale, because you've always been in, you know, the support functions at work. And even if you were in a sales position, right, you're still asking on behalf of the company. You're not asking for someone to invest in you effectively. There isn't there is no bigger personal development stretch than becoming a salesperson and having to ask for money, ask for the sale. And the thing I've learned is sales is like the biggest act of service. In this work that we do, and I was on a call last night with the amazing Leah Gregory, and she said something along these lines. The work I do with my clients is transformative. Like they are not the same people that come out the other end of the working with me as that they were when they came in, right? Even in my lowest cost,£33 a month secret leader files, I've got women in there who were miserable and unhappy in their employment and who are now thriving in new jobs just through working with me and they paid£33 a month. And now, would they have potentially got jobs off their own back? Sure. But actually, the journey that they were able to go on and how they were able to see themselves through the process meant that they saw themselves, right? They landed in this place that was um a much better place when they did get the jobs, and they were in a better place and a mindset to go for the jobs in the first place. This work is transformative, and therefore, it is a disservice of me to not offer you to work with me if I think I can help you. We need to feel no shame about asking for the sale, about making offers. And I think that's been a biggest learning for me because at one point it felt awful to say out loud how much it was to work with me, to have those sales conversations, and now I'm embracing it way more because I see it as service, like it's a disservice of me not to make you an offer if I think I can help improve your life. That's what I want to say about money. I'm sure there's more layers we can go into, and that was quite meaty in itself. But the other thing I want to really talk about is in terms of like the difference between being employed and self-employed, is the lack of structure when you are no longer employed. Because when you're employed, you have like an expectation. There is a contract that you will work nine to five, for example, or you'll be in the office for three days a week, or um, you take your hour lunch or your half-hour lunch, whatever it is. You don't have all of a sudden when you're self-employed. And unless I've got a call with a client, or um I'm I'm getting on a sales call, or I'm creating content and I'm chatting to people online, I'm pretty much alone. And I've got to create my own structure. And I think for years, I threw out the structure that I had, I even threw out the to-do lists that I used to have. I used to have to-do lists galore, and now I don't. So yeah, I threw out those to-do lists and kind of just like wanted to flow through life and do what felt good and go with my moods, and and that served me for a period because I really did need that kind of disconnection from the go, go, go being switched on all the time. And it was glorious actually to be at home and not be traveling. And I felt quite apathetic for a couple of years. That was because a lot of the stuff that I'll go into next week came up around my worthiness and the fact that you're facing yourself for the first time because you haven't got the constant distraction of being in an office with other people and delivering on goals that have been set for you or expectations or daily targets or whatever it is that you work towards. You don't have any of that. So you are facing yourself and all of your weaknesses come into the fore because you're so reliant on yourself showing up. And that's the other shift that was really prevalent for me was going from being very reactive to an inbox full of people that needed things from me, a calendar full of back to back-to-back meetings, right? So being constantly reactive to this calendar and this inbox to having nothing. Like, and I I've told this story on many a day. I like the first day I've got my laptop that I'm using now, I sat down at my desk, I was dressed at eight o'clock, I was showered, I'd had my breakfast, I opened my laptop and I press refresh on my inbox, my hotmail inbox, because that's the only one I had. And all I had was junk and a realization like what the fuck do I do now? And the fact that actually I've got to now move from being reactive for most of my career into being proactive and creating my own opportunities. And that was huge. That and the fact that, you know, when you're employed, you're usually employed to do a job, like a specific job, a specified job description. And whilst you can oftentimes find new opportunities to do more, take on more responsibility, dabble on different things, you know, ultimately you know what you're going in to do. And actually, when you're your own boss, you've now got to do the admin, you've got to do your finances, you've got to do your sales, your marketing, your messaging, your branding. You've got to be wearing all the hats and switching between those. And like then, if you've got a team member, you've got to be still be the leader, you've got to be the personal brand online, if that's the way you've chosen to do things. You've got to potentially talk to distributors, to providers, to um other people that are involved in the whole ecosystem of your business. And that's not necessarily something you're used to doing. You're you're now the CEO. And before you were just playing a role, that's been something I've personally embraced because I love being all over it and I don't mind doing all the things. And like when it comes to things like tech, I am self-taught. Like I've self-taught how to do my first podcast, like literally through Googling things, through taking courses on how to set up your podcasts from scratch, and I've taken myself through the process. So by the time I came to do my second podcast, this one, I knew how to do it. I've created my own website and I've done that through Googling, through YouTube tutorials and through all of that to find out how to do it myself. So I'm very self-taught in a lot of it because I wanted to really roll my sleeves up and understand how it happens. And actually, that serves me well because when I do work with others who want to create a business of their own, I can help them. I know what a funnel is, I know how to create an email list, I know what to do within a launch, I know how to create offers and to start thinking about your messaging and getting your marketing on point. I know how to teach you to do reels on Instagram and show up live and bring your whole authentic self to the internet, which is like a big part of my own mission that has been all the way through my career. Whichever iteration it's looked at, you go from one hat to many, many hats, from like having a specific defined role to being a CEO of your own business. And that can come with its challenges and it's days when you don't think you're cut out for it. But ultimately, it comes with a lot of excitement and variation, which is what something I've always sought throughout my career. Um, as soon as I got bored in my career, I'd find another job in the company. Ultimately, the thread throughout has been how you bring more of yourself and how you find your way, right? How you find your way of doing it. And I guess that's what I would say with all of this, whether it's the money conversation, whether it's the structure and then how you use your time conversation. My ultimate positive with all this, whilst you've lost a lot of structure and you maybe lost some certainty around income, I have gained so much freedom about how I spend my days. So my structure now, because I did have to bring some structure back in because I was kind of floating around a bit aimlessly, I had to have some goals to work towards. I had to have some things that I was needing to deliver. I've had to create my own urgency around um deadlines and things like that. I've had to put things in my diary that have created that urgency. And whilst I never switch off from my work, it's like my life's work. This is my purpose, this is my mission. I have a vision for this business. I can never switch off from that. I can't, it I take it to sleep with me. And I wake up in the morning, it's the first thing I think about. And I think if you've got that in you, then you know, chances are you're meant to be self-employed, you're meant to be more entrepreneurial, you're meant to be out in the world creating what it is that you see for the world. And if not, I would definitely say stay in your job, stay with that comfort and that certainty and that structure and the yes, the monotony sometimes, but stay with it. This really isn't for everyone. I never switch off, but I never want to. And I've had to create some discipline in my life, but I've done it in a way that feels really freaking good for me. So my Mondays, I personal train at 10:30 in the morning. So I get up without an alarm when I feel like it. Sometimes I spring out of bed at six o'clock. Sometimes I'm laying in until eight o'clock in the morning when Adam's going to work. Then I kind of think maybe it's time for me to get up. And I take the dog out for a walk after we've had some breakfast. And I go down to the gym and I do my personal training session, and I come home and I shower and I sit down and I have some lunch. And then around half past 12, 1 o'clock, I'm usually ready to start my day. That's my choice. I choose to structure my Mondays like that because there's this like I never want to have that dread on a Sunday. I never have it because I can't wait to get going on a Monday. I can't wait to get back to my purpose work. But I need some structure and I need some balance in there as well. And this is what I've created. This is the way that works for me. So on the Mondays, I might work until later on in the evening, and that's okay with me too. But I also know I don't need to be at my desk working for eight hours a day. Like it doesn't need to happen. I don't have that many clients that I have to be working eight hour days. I might have that much on my heart that I want to bring out and create in the world that I want to get innovative about and like creative and start sharing on social media. But still, that doesn't take eight hours a day. It doesn't require me to be sat at my desk for eight hours a day. So my discipline is less about sitting down, sitting my bum on my seat and making myself work. My discipline is more about I do not need to be sat here for eight hours a day. So I my discipline is finding structure with personal training, regular personal training sessions, finding structure with this is when I take the dog for a walk, and like that being a non-negotiable in my day. Like my dog walk is my non-negotiable. The dog needs to be walked, but I need to get away from my desk. I need to get out in the fresh air and be out in nature and have that downtime away from my devices where I'm just receiving inspired action for what's next. I I've created that in my way. That's not for everyone either. So yeah, I think that's a nice place to land this plane. Whilst there are things that are definitely different from being employed to self-employed, there are things to be gained from that. And a lot, a big part of it is freedom for me. Freedom in how I run my days, freedom in who I work with, freedom in um the things that I'm getting creative around, freedom in the um opportunities that I take up and seek out, and the people that I work with. It's like there's a lot of freedom in there. Um, freedom to learn and to constantly be growing and to yeah, always be challenging myself in different ways. And at the same time, it is not for everyone. And I hope that gives you a flavour, like a real behind the scenes beneath the surface, flavour for the reality that we don't normally talk about. So I know I've gone on a little bit. I'm gonna end it there. I am gonna come back next week with the more mindset pieces around actually what it takes to show up as yourself in a personal brand online and not hiding behind a company, right? Which you do when you're employed. Um, so come back for that. If anything in this landed, do let me know. Reach out. Um, Instagram is my kind of home on social media. I've just accepted that. I don't love Facebook, I don't love LinkedIn. Um, I will show up there, but Instagram's my home. So if you're not following me on Instagram, come find me at emmaclayton.xo. Let me know. Um, and if you think someone else um could do with hearing this, um maybe someone that is considering going self-employed or is struggling being self-employed, and you want them to hear that they're not alone and that they're not going crazy, please do share it with them. It means the world to get this podcast out into more ears around the world. So thank you for being here. Thank you for putting up with the rain, if you can hear that. And um, I will be back next week with more and on. Take care.

Head Shot

Emma Clayton

Host