Post Script to Success on My Terms Blog Post:

I have been getting a lot of questions of interest with respect to the Success on My Terms blog post I wrote in 2015 asking how things turned out?

So, I am writing this part of the blog post approximately one year after I wrote the Success on My Terms article, as a post script you could say.

Since I wrote the article, I have started my own consulting company, where I consult to clients on real estate related asset management issues and have signed a contract with a Canadian university to start lecturing in September.

When I wrote the article,  I visualized setting my own work terms (which for me allowed me to work flexibly and from my home office ) while making an income, not equal, but close to what I was making in the corporate world, or at least sufficient to cover our needs.  Was this possible?  At the time, I was not sure, but I did have this vision.

Just in case however, I made a household budget based on our “needs” not our “wants” and developed a system of how to stick to it (which I will write about in a future post).

Before I knew it however, contracts were being secured and there you had it: I had jumped.  Yes, I took a leap of faith.  I have two young children in daycare (and if you are from Ontario, you understand what those costs are like), but nonetheless I was moving forward.  As Hermina Ibarra, the well known Harvard OB prof, puts it: ” Self-renewal requires some jumping and some settling back in”.

I had calculated what my income with benefits would be at my old corporate job, and back calculated how that would translate into an hourly rate.  Using this model, I quickly realized, that I could make as much income in 3 days of working for myself and charging clients per hour, than in 5 days at a company.  How? In my corporate job, I was getting and paying for benefits I did not need (as we were already covered as a family).  I also had a corporate car, that I was indirectly paying for as a “taxable benefit” that I also did not need.   Using my “all-in” salary (including benefits) to calculate my hourly consulting rate, created opportunities for me to generate income and cash in my pocket. I would rather get the benefits as cash, not as benefits I did not use.  I also realized that this decision had significant tax implications.  See this article, on some things you can write off when you own your own business:  Owning Your Own Business Tax Shelter Article. I realized that while my goal was to align my work life with my life priorities,  surprisingly to me I could also make a decent income; something I did not expect.

Whatever I would visualize, would seem to materialize.   I guess that’s where the famous saying “if you can conceive it, you can achieve it!!”

The blog post, Success on My Terms, is about creating the life you want (which may involve a different definition of success than what external society considers success). It is also about realizing that it is very possible to find that success (even the same external success, if that is what is important to you), and greater life fulfillment – on YOUR terms.

What I wrote in 2015, is therefore not a story  of “downshifting an ambitious career for the very commendable mommy track”, as Ibarra puts it in one of her articles.  Although changing my career structures did facilitate my ability to have more flexibility for my family, the post is an article about creating your own metrics for “success” (not someone else’s), visualizing what you want and setting up the structures to go after it. To go after whatever you are passionate about. Success on your terms!