Episode 7: The ups and downs of entrepreneurship – with Sara Sabin

Episode 7: The ups and downs of entrepreneurship - with Sara Sabin

Sara Sabin
The subconscious basically is programmed to act in a certain way. And unless you reprogram it by telling yourself a different story - which you may not believe to start with, to be honest - but unless you make that effort to reprogram, it's just going to be really, really hard to make impactful change. Because you're always...

Jeremy Cline
This is Sara Sabin, a transformational coach and self styled 'underpreneur'. She's had quite an interesting and somewhat bumpy journey, and we'll hear how she's persisted with her entrepreneurial dream, even when she's first to admit that she started it with some pretty unrealistic expectations of how it would work out. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life.

Hello, and welcome to Change Work Life, the show that's here to help you banish those Sunday evening blues. My guest in this episode is Sara Sabin. She's a transformational coach and she describes herself as an underpreneur, and we'll hear a bit about why she describes herself in those terms. Its really interesting following Sara's journey in this conversation. She'll be the first to admit that it hasn't been an easy journey or a straightforward journey. And if you're thinking about going solo or starting your own business, then it's definitely worth having a listen to what Sara's got to say. Hi, Sara, welcome to the show.

Sara Sabin
Hi, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.

Jeremy Cline
It's a pleasure. So let's dive straight in. And can you tell us about what it is that you're doing now?

Sara Sabin
So what I'm doing now is I am working working for a startup. So it's a career-related startup, basically connecting senior executives with executive search firms. And so I do a range of things for them, including content management, business development, social media, a bit of marketing, some user experience stuff, so quite a varied position. And I have actually just finished and closed down a startup that I had been working on for the last two and a half years.

Jeremy Cline
Oh right, okay. So I tell you what, let's sort of work back a bit and then kind of work through how you got to where you are, because that sounds quite interesting, but quite a departure from what you were originally doing. So am I right in saying that you did a law degree, but then became an accountant?

Sara Sabin
Yes. So I would refer to myself as a little bit of a career chameleon. So I've already changed career a few times. I did a law degree in King's College London and the Sorbonne in Paris. And I'd originally thought I'd like to be a barrister. But due to the cost of training and all of that, at the time, I decided not to pursue that route. I wanted to do something different. So I actually went travelling for about five months to South America. And when I came back, I started training as a tax accountant, and I trained with Mazars.

Jeremy Cline
So why did you do in law degree in the first place out of interest? Was that because you thought, I'm going to be a barrister, so l'll do a law degree?

Sara Sabin
So when I was growing up, I actually, even though perhaps I was more creatively inclined, I came from a background where security, profession, financial security, all of that were impressed upon me and programmed into me. So rather than choosing to do law because I felt that it was something that would be good for me to do, I did it for programming reasons, really, which is the wrong reasons to do something.

Jeremy Cline
So would you say that was explicit, or implicit? Was it something that your parents said? You should really should do this Sarah? Or was it more, where you kind of just got the impression that that was what they would want you to do?

Sara Sabin
So actually, most of the pressure that has occurred in my life has been self-inflicted. So obviously, most parents are of the mindset where if your child becomes a lawyer, that's a good thing. But they didn't specifically say to me, you should or have to become a lawyer. That was something that I reached a conclusion on myself.

Jeremy Cline
Okay, so you did you law degree, and concluded the bar wasn't for you. So how did you then end up going into accounting?

Sara Sabin
Well, the element that I always remembered liking from law was tax. So I'd done a few mini pupillages at tax barristers chambers, and thought, Oh, this whole tax area is quite exciting. I know, that's a little bit geeky! But that was my inclination at the time. And I thought, I really want to know more about this and actually doing an accountancy qualification, which includes quite a large element of of tax within it and training within a corporate tax department was a way that I found of getting there without sort of having to go back down the legal route, so to speak.

Jeremy Cline
And so I can see how the the costs thing - it's kind of very sort of present when you're young, and just starting out and that sort of thing - but now do you look back and think, actually, you know, what, it would have been an investment, it would have been justified. I mean, do you have any regrets about not going to the bar? Or are you quite happy with how things panned out?

Sara Sabin
I was thinking about this recently. And genuinely, I have very few regrets about any of the choices that I've made. Do I think I could have been a barrister? Yes, probably. However, just knowing me and my nature, I'm not sure it would have been a career that I would have wanted to do forever, so for 30, 40 years until I retired.

Jeremy Cline
So you become an accountant. And then I think I saw that you go to work for a family office?

Sara Sabin
I do, yes! The next stage in my career journey. So after I'd finished my training contract, I was lucky enough to have a few options. So I could have gone into industry - to work for a large company in their corporate tax team. I was also offered a role in one of the big four in their corporate tax team and a position in a multi-family office. I ended up going for that one, because I thought, this sounds like it's going to be the most varied, I'll work with the most interesting people. And that appealed to me more than specialising in the field of corporate tax and staying there forevermore.

Jeremy Cline
So why change in the first place when you said that you had offers from going to work in house, going to work for one of the big firms? What was wrong with - well I say what was wrong - what made you decide that you didn't want to qualify and stay where you were for any length of time?

Sara Sabin
I absolutely 100% knew I wanted to move. That wasn't the question for me. I think the question was more 'what do I do now' because three years in one place, I think is more than enough time. And I think it's healthy to move between company to company to get what you want, and what you need out of your career. So I'm an advocate for taking skills in various places and moving on and applying them elsewhere. And that doesn't need to necessarily be a drastic career change, as I've done a few times, it could be just moving to a different size firm, where you can have a better work-life balance, or it might be nearer to your house, so you have less of a commute. But sometimes, we will quite often, in fact, we do have to make a change in order to get something more aligned with where we are at that stage in our life.

Jeremy Cline
Okay, so this was your first job we're talking about at Mazars. And did you go in thinking that three years would be how long you were going to stay there? Had you already developed this sort of philosophy, even when you just started out in your career?

Sara Sabin
No, I think well I always knew - a training contract was three years. I didn't know how I would feel at the end of the three years at the beginning of that process. But it became quite clear, probably about two years in that I would want to leave at the end of that three year period. I actually, I think two years is a good barometer, I have noticed - anything I've worked with - there's always the crunch point around two year mark, where I begin to reassess and reevaluate if this is really the place where I want to stay, and really the career I want to be doing.

Jeremy Cline
Okay, so two years - that's when you kind of think... or what do you think at two years? Do you think? No, it's time for a change? What do you think then no, I'll give it a bit longer, I'll give it another year or give it much longer?

Sara Sabin
So I usually don't end up leaving after at the two year itch points. Mostly because I actually know myself. And I know, I do get these kind of cycles after two years. And so that's the point at which I start to think and from there, it can actually take another one or two years before I'll actually get round to making the change because change is uncomfortable. It always is. And there's different degrees of change. So moving from one law firm to another, might be more comfortable than moving from being a lawyer to I don't know, moving to being a career coach, for example. But still, any form of change is uncomfortable. And I'm on the side where I don't think you should necessarily be impulsive about it. So you think, okay, I'm thinking I might leave and then leave the next day. So I'm someone that likes to consider these things before I jump actually into them.

Jeremy Cline
Okay, so it's quite an interesting sort of set of values, if you like. So you kind of give somewhere a two year place, you've kind of got in mind that three years is a good period, to have picked up the skills that you want to pick up in a particular role. And then you've kind of got between that two and three year period where you're kind of assessing what your next move is, is that... a good summary or is that how it looks like in retrospect, but actually, when you were doing it at the time, that's not necessarily what was going through your mind?

Sara Sabin
I think the two year period something needs to happen. So either your role expands, or something changes within the organisation. And if that were to happen, and actually, it hasn't happened to me when I worked in a corporate environment and that's probably why I ended up moving on, but even if it leads to change in what you're doing in your current place, actually, that might make all the difference and might make you happier, more fulfilled at work. But at least at that point, you start to think, What do I want? What are my values? What are my next steps? And what do I need to do? Do I need to leave? Or can I be happy doing something a bit different where I currently am?

Jeremy Cline
Tell me a bit more about that. You've talked about, you know, assessing your values and that sort of thing? And is this something that you now habitually do that you you get to a point in your time any you... I mean, how does that work? Do you sort of write things down, do you look back at them every six months, 12 months? Or how does that work for you?

Sara Sabin
So basically, it in terms of what I would actually do... My philosophy now, having worked in the realm of startups and entrepreneurships in the last few years, the big lesson I have learned is, do what you feel passionate about. Because it gives you purpose, and drive and focus every day. And don't do something just because either you feel that you should be doing it or everyone else tells you, you should be doing it. And that's quite a nutshell version of what I'm saying. But yes, I do do exercises like affirmations, journaling, writing things down and all of that. But I always have in mind when I'm picking something or deciding my next role, what is it that I'm really, really looking for here? And taking the mind out of the equation, because the mind will always say, That's impossible. You can't do that. It's just silly. And so trying to quieten that down and get back to what do I really want? And once you've decided that you can start planning, Well, how do I feasibly get there? And it sounds easy. But actually, it's the hardest thing in the world to stop your mind running away and telling you about all the things the stories of all the things that you can't do, because it's too difficult to do them.

Jeremy Cline
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with. It's they kind of think, well, wouldn't it be nice to do that? Oh, but I'll never do that. I'm just you know, there's some reason or there, there's always a reason why people say, oh no, I could never do that. But actually, it's just kidding.

Sara Sabin
Yeah, I mean, it's just something people tell themselves. And it's a protective mechanism as well. So I'm really interested in neuroscience and the work of the brain and I'm not purporting to be an expert in it. But the subconscious basically is programmed to act in a certain way. And unless you reprogram it by telling yourself a different story - which you may not believe to start with, to be honest - but unless you make that effort to reprogram, it's just going to be really, really hard to make impactful change. Because you're always holding yourself back.

Jeremy Cline
Mmm. So the process that you've described - sort of journaling, and that sort of thing - is that something that you've just developed, as you've gone through your career journey? Or is this something that you've had help with? Or you picked up from books or you've had a coach or how's that sort of come into being?

Sara Sabin
So I've always liked writing anyway. So it's a natural way for me to express my feelings. And it's something that I've started doing myself, and yes, I've heard other people refer to it. But it was me actually deciding that this is how I'm going to process what I'm thinking in terms of have I had a coach or a mentor, I've had a specific coach for a very specific reason, which was to do with my tech startup that I had been working on. But I think that's very different from a life coach that is there to help you find your life purpose for example. I think that's a completely different thing. But I mean, all of the startups I've been working with over the last few years, and I've had two of my own startups since about 2015. They've all been working with professionals that wanted to make change in their career, or life to greater or lesser extents. And so I'm quite used to advising doctors, for example, that want to transition into a non medical career, or professionals that want to transition into entrepreneurship. Because, you know, I'm really understanding where they're coming from.

Jeremy Cline
I want to dive into that a little bit, because we've kind of skipped over a little bit, which is how you got from working, training as an accountant working for a multi-family office into getting involved in all tech startups. I mean, looking on the outside that's quite a shift! And so how did that come about?

Sara Sabin
[Laughs] So that was, that was really the big change, where I moved out of the corporate world. And it started really in, let's say, the end of 2014 I think it was. So I was working with my first startup, which I co-founded called Medic Footprints. And it was for doctors looking at alternative careers. And I was actually doing that alongside my work at the multi-family office. So I would work on that evenings, weekends, holidays.

Jeremy Cline
Why did you sort of start with that anyway? What made you go in 2014, you're working in this full time job, I'm going to start this thing up?

Sara Sabin
It was, I would have to say actually was more to do with my co-founder, because she said to me - and she's a doctor - she said to me, I want to start this business, will you help me, because I came from a different background, to her so we thought our skills would be complementary.

Jeremy Cline
This being the sort of accountancy, tax background?

Sara Sabin
Yes, yes. So that's why I started doing that. And I, at the time I started, I never had any intention that I would be doing that full time at any point. That became something I thought about later. So to bridge the gap of how I was doing both to how I moved to entrepreneurship full time, the first thing to say with any professional is a professional gets used to security, a certain standard of living, and they've worked really hard and a really long time to get where they are. So to give it up and do something completely different is really not an easy decision. So if you really are serious about moving into something completely different, I would always recommend having a financial cushion, because I think that's really important so that you don't add finances as an additional burden and stress in addition to the stress you'll feel from moving into something that's outside of your comfort zone. So at the point that I realised, actually, the corporate world is not for me, I want to create. So that was my major drive at that time. I want to create something new. I want to help people transition in their career because it's something I feel really passionately about. And I want to have my own business, my own startup. So I decided that. I saved up money. And I left the corporate world. I think that was around the end of 2015 and I started working with Medic Footprints full time, and that was 2016. I left Medic Footprints around the end of 2016. And that was because my co founder and I couldn't agree with the direction of the business essentially. But that's still going on and flourishing. And then we get to, I had left this startup, and I thought, I'm going to do something much more aligned with me - I'm going to set up a tech startup. And it's going to be accounting focused, so accountants moving in their career.

Jeremy Cline
So focusing on helping others with career transition?

Sara Sabin
Exactly. So the common thread was the same and even the startup I work with at the minute - that thread remains. So you can do actually things that on the surface look completely different, maybe, but they have a commonality, a common factor - a common passion, if you like. But I will put my hands up and wholeheartedly admit, I went into this tech startup that I founded myself with huge rose-coloured spectacles. And, yes, I don't regret having done it. But it was about hundred times harder than I thought it would be in my head when I started.

Jeremy Cline
And why do you think that was?

Sara Sabin
Well, I think the first issue was, I now really understand why people often start tech startups in teams. So you have two or three co founders. It's just because there's such an immense volume of things that need to be done. And also doing a tech startup, when you're not from a tech background - I really wouldn't recommend doing that again to be to be perfectly honest with you, because I thought okay, well, I can just control the process if the tech is outsourced. But quite frankly, it was a nightmare. So I think, had I set the business up with someone that came from a tech background, I think that would have made the process a lot easier, but also huge amounts of traction really quickly. Which, again, is is much harder than it might sound. And especially where you feel, maybe actually the market is not quite ready for what I'm offering. Yes. And you can't just sort of ram it down people's throats.

Jeremy Cline
I can kind of see that you wanted to help people with career transitioning. But why did you decide to focus on tech? Was that just because it was something that everyone was doing it? You know, why combine career transitioning with a tech thing rather than I don't know consulting or, you know, the usual sort of coaching?

Sara Sabin
So this is the classic case of doing something for the wrong reasons! After I left Medic Footprints, I thought everything should be online, doing events and conferences is not the way to go - it's all about technology. And I was obsessed with that idea in my head. And I also think, in retrospect, I felt like I had something that I had to prove both to myself and to everyone else that I could do this all by myself. So I think it's really important when you're starting something - be really honest about why you're doing it. And don't do it because again, I think tech startups have the image of being quite glamorous - and you've got all these cool co working spaces, you have beer and cake on a Friday at 3 or 4pm - and the reality is, it's quite different from the glamorised version that people have in their heads,

Jeremy Cline
So you were quite seduced by the sort of the hipster tech... I suppose in the US it'd be Bay area, over here, it'd be kind of like Shoreditch, Hoxton, sort of thing. That was all quite a seductive lifestyle?

Sara Sabin
Yes, yes, definitely. I liked the idea of, you know, fundraising and having a co-working space. And all of these things that actually didn't happen in reality anyway. So I think there was a huge amount of rose-coloured spectacles going on when I started it. But it's the kind of thing you can only really see in hindsight, that actually you probably didn't start it for the right reasons.

Jeremy Cline
Okay. And so with that hindsight, what direction are you taking now?

Sara Sabin
So I am giving myself an enforced break, if you like. So I'm still, I'm still doing work for the startup I'm currently working with. I've been working with them for a few years now. Really great, suits my lifestyle. I work remotely for them, I have a lot of autonomy. And so I'm still doing that. But I'm taking a break before leaping into anything new. Because I realised that I've just been doing doing doing the last few years without really stopping and thinking why - and is this the right thing to be doing. And having said that, though, I now - having taken a step back - have a clear idea of what to do next. So I will be starting a blog about my entrepreneurial journey. And I will be moving more into the consulting realm, which is probably the direction I should've taken to start with! So the blog will be personal to me, but I hope that it guides other entrepreneurs on the journey that they're taking. And I'm going to talk quite openly about some of the issues that people might face. So mental health issues - I think really important people discussing them more and more - the insecurity and uncertainty you feel when you're making a change, isolation, burnout which I think is a huge problem for anyone moving into the entrepreneurial space. So I will be doing work around that, but also work with professionals that want to transition and make change in their career. Again, that might be to a greater or lesser extent, it might be just changing job. It might be moving from working as a doctor to not working as a doctor or it could be the whole hog - it could be someone that is is adamant they're fed up with the corporate world, and they just want to leave now.

Jeremy Cline
And what's your goal in all this at the moment, where were you hoping that this is going to take you Sara Sabin? Or have you even thought about that? I mean, do you have you know, the 5 year plan or even the 10 year plan, if that's not too far ahead? I mean, what are you kind of at the moment hoping that the future holds for you?

Sara Sabin
I stopped doing 10 year plans quite a long time ago [Laughs]. I just don't think it's realistic for me, personally, to have a 10 year plan, because so much can change within 10 years. What I do have is what I'd call maybe a one to five year plan. But I think it's really important when you're doing something a bit different to not stick rigidly to it. So you might have an idea in your mind, but it actually takes you in a slightly different direction. And it's important to be open to that rather than rigidly sticking to a plan even if something better comes along. I'm starting this out and I'm basically seeing - so the blog will be called The Underpreneur.

Jeremy Cline
I like that!

Sara Sabin
[Laughs] I brainstormed that name with my cousin who is a designer, very proud of it! And so I'll be starting that and I will be starting or expanding upon the consulting work that I do, because I currently do some of that anyway. And I will be seeing what road that goes down. So whether that's full-time consulting, whether it's working with continuing to work with startups, whether it's doing online courses. And my other big, big goal within the next three years is to finish my book and get that published, which... I've been working on this book for a couple of years now. Just when I have the time. So big goals, but I'm open in which direction I end up going in.

Jeremy Cline
Is the book in your sort of professional space, is this like a book to help entrepreneurs or career changers?

Sara Sabin
I'd like to do that as well. But actually, no, this is a pure, fantastical work. It's an apocalyptic book. So it's fictional, but the whole genre dystopia near future societies, apocalypse is something that I love watching and reading. So I wanted to write a book around that.

Jeremy Cline
Wow! So looking back on this journey, is there anything which you wish someone had told you at any particular point in that, be it when you started as an accountant or moving to the family office? Or perhaps more importantly, when you moved into the startup realm? Is there anything which you look back and think, gosh, I wish I'd known that?

Sara Sabin
I do. But the question is, would I have listened had someone said it to me, which is another story! But I would have definitely started working on mindsets much earlier in my life, for a few reasons. So number one, to give me clarity on the kind of directions I should be taking that were aligned with my personality and goals. But also because mindset is just so crucial to achieving anything that you want to achieve. More so when you're doing something that involves constant change. And I can see how a lot of mindset training might come across as a bit 'woo, woo' - completely appreciate that. But it's also backed up by neuroscience. Literally 95% of our functioning is subconscious. And, and only 5% is conscious. So you can see how you can consciously want one thing, and your subconscious is there in the background with its programming, kind of sabotaging everything you do. So I think if I had to pick one thing I would have done, it would have been that really consistently work on mindset earlier, and there's different methods of doing that. So it could be meditation, it could be yoga, it could be affirmations, it could be writing down things that you're grateful for. But just something that helps you deal with that change a bit better.

Jeremy Cline
Fantastic. Sara, this has been absolutely amazing. And if you're up for it, I'd love to check in with you again, maybe in six months, a year's time, see, you know, see where the next twist in your journey's got to if you'd be up for that?

Sara Sabin
Absolutely I would be up for that. I would also like to see where I'm at in six months to be honest!

Jeremy Cline
I think we all would! Fantastic. I mean, you've talked a lot about getting mindset right and doing what you feel passionate about. I mean, do you have - either in this space or in something else - just a resource book, quote, course website, anything, which you found has been really helpful as you've gone through this quite interesting journey?

Sara Sabin
Yeah, I've got a few things. So I'm a big fan of quotes. So I have a couple of quotes that I like. They're both really well known. But I'm going to say them anyway. So the first one is 'Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right,' by Henry Ford. Later copied by various A-list celebrities along their journey. And also, I love the quote, 'A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step'. The reason why I love that quote so much is because when you've got all these ideas buzzing around in your head, and so much to do, or even you're working in your current job, and you're doing something on the side - it's so easy to get massively overwhelmed. Whereas if you just consistently do something every day, so the half an hour or an hour every day, you're taking steps towards your 1000 mile goal. And then I listened to a really interesting podcast recently called Mental Health, which I absolutely loved, because it was tech entrepreneurs talking about mental health issues that they face. And a lot of that resonated with me and I'm sure would resonate with other people. And I have finished just reading a book by someone called Thales Teixera, called Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption. Really interesting book for anyone wanting to go into the startup space, because he talks about how we're all so obsessed with technology now and technology innovation, we kind of completely forgot what this is about, which is the consumer and the consumer driving disruption. And one other book, which is a mindset book, by a chap called Jake Dusey, and it's called Profit from Happiness: The Unity of Wealth, Work and Personal Fulfilment.

Jeremy Cline
Wow, fantastic. So what was the name of the podcast did you say?

Sara Sabin
Killing it: Adventures in Startups and Mental Health.

Jeremy Cline
Cool. Well, I will certainly link to all of those in the show notes. That's fantastic. Brilliant. Sara it's been wonderful talking to you. How can people get in contact with you if they want to connect or find out a bit more?

Sara Sabin
So I will be probably within the next month, month and a half be launching my personal website, which will be sarasabin.com, which will also have a link to the Underpreneur blog. Otherwise, I am also very active on LinkedIn. And anyone is absolutely free to email me to ask any questions they have. I'm quite used to people emailing me in a blind panic because they don't know what to do next! If you just need someone to talk to or need a bit of advice, then I'm happy to talk to people about that.

Jeremy Cline
Fantastic. Sara, it's been brilliant. Thank you so much.

Sara Sabin
Thank you, Jeremy.

Jeremy Cline
The biggest takeaway for me in this conversation was the way Sara described the difference between what she thought entrepreneurship was going to be like and how it has, in fact, turned out. And the intention of this conversation wasn't to put people off, but just to really highlight that starting your own business, doing your own thing - it can be difficult, it can be challenging. Things inevitably don't go smoothly. Inevitably, things don't work out the way you think they're going to. But that doesn't mean that you're doing the wrong thing, that entrepreneurship isn't for you. Just look at what Sara's doing. She's you know, she's picked herself up and she's carried on. She could easily go back into the corporate world and I've no doubt that she could go back into corporate tax or family office, or whatever it might be. But she knows that that's not for her. And she's been happy to spend the time trying out things, making mistakes - she knows that she's going in the right direction, even if she's making a few wrong turns on the way and well that's fine. Since recording this episode, Sara's website is now up and running. And I will link to that and also Sara's social media profiles, and also the resources she mentioned in the show in the show notes. And that's at changeworklife.com/7. That's number seven, changeworklife.com/7 for Episode Seven. If you've been enjoying this podcast interview, or the other interviews or episodes that I've put out, then please do leave a review on Apple podcasts or your podcast provider of choice. All your reviews do help others to find the show. So if you have got a couple of minutes where you could just leave a review, I would be unbelievably grateful. If it's been helpful for you I'm sure it'll be helpful for others so it'd be great if you could help other people find it by leaving a review. Thank you again for joining me and I look forward to seeing you next time where we've got another great interview. Cheers, bye.