In this episode, I speak with Steve Borer, partner of DMC Recruitment Group in Canada, about his journey from a successful corporate career to becoming a reluctant entrepreneur. Steve shares valuable insights from his four years of running a business, including the challenges of leaving corporate life, the unexpected joys of entrepreneurship, and the hard work required to achieve a work-life balance. If you're a mid-career professional dreaming of more control over your life, this conversation will provide a grounded perspective on what it takes to turn job into your business.

Speaker Links:

Website: https://dmcrecruitment.com/

Connect with Steve on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-borer-2656351

Dig a little deeper:

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.

https://www.midlifeunstuck.com/derailed

I meet lots of ambitious mid career professionals whose major

dream in life is to have more control over the balance between their

work, family, and lifestyle goals.

One way to do this is to turn your current work into a business

where you make the decisions.

Sounds simple, eh?

But the reality is messy.

I invited Steve Borer, partner in DMC recruitment group in Canada to

speak to you, to share the reality of leaving corporate life behind,

becoming a reluctant entrepreneur and his observations about work

life balance four years into creating a very successful business.

Let's dive in.

Hi, I'm Steve Borer.

I'm partner of DMC recruitment group based in Canada.

We specialize in the building materials, architecture and design

and construction industries.

Four years ago, we set this business up.

I'd never ever wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I never had the great idea.

I was no visionary.

I am no inventor.

I stumbled into a situation where, ultimately, it

seemed like I had no choice.

I'd run out of enjoyment within the corporate world.

I'd had a successful corporate career.

I'd worked my way up through to director level within one of the big global firms.

But I just, I simply never liked the politics, the climbing over each other

to get ahead, the rigidity of that life, that felt too stifling for me.

It got to a point where really I had no choice.

So you became a somewhat reluctant entrepreneur.

So tell us, tell us a couple of things.

What a really interesting story.

Tell us a couple of things, a couple of the good things about turning

your career into your business.

So the thing that I've enjoyed the most is

actually running a business.

And I never really realized.

I would.

I realized I was a great recruiter.

I knew that I could lead people.

And I wasn't the guy that had read all the business books and

was burning to run a business.

But I guess what I've worked out number one is the widget doesn't really matter.

The recruitment side of things is just what we do to make money.

The bit where I glean the enjoyment is from actually running the business

and the crazy pace at which you need to self develop and self learn.

My learning curve has been, almost a vertical since I've started this,

the need to podcast like crazy, read books like crazy to listen to that.

What's that headway app where you can summarize books quickly

so you can absorb them faster in terms of what you need to learn.

But I've enjoyed that.

I've enjoyed the whole learning and building something.

And I think, also.

People that worry so much about the risk of setting up a business

Okay.

don't often think about the other side the monetary side.

I know it's boring, but I work to live.

I work to earn money.

And the reality is when you run your own business your earning potential is 10X,

what it was in the corporates, you're no longer lining the pockets of shareholders

or your boss or something like that.

So, That's been game changing as well.

Wasn't really the reason that I set it up.

I set it up for lifestyle, but the earning capacity has been huge as well.

Fabulous!

God, that sounds good.

Are there any downsides at all?

Loads.

Of course.

No,

I imagine this is a little bit like childbirth that I'm obviously

male, so I'll never know.

But people all talk about how bad it is, and I'm sure every other woman out

there dreads it a little bit, thinks about it, but doesn't realize how bad it

is till they're actually in the moment.

It's like that when you're setting up a business, you really,

everyone says it's hard work.

And I think before you set up your own business, you sit in that corporate

world thinking, Oh I work hard.

And the reality is you.

Do not know what hard work is until it starts.

And when it starts, like when you cut your ties and go, this is what I'm doing.

Once you decide and you commit, it is crazy hard work.

It does ebb away a little bit as it goes on.

I'm four years in and certainly the last two have been a hell of

a lot easier than the first two.

And probably the second year was a hell of a lot easier than that first year, but

that first year, you don't understand what that's going to be like till you do it.

So I think you need to be ready for that.

It's all in.

and then I think other than that, my big piece of advice for people

in terms of getting it right is.

Then as you come out the other side, trying to not let it have absorbed

everything off you, the getting the lifestyle back is the challenge that

I'm currently going through, in terms of just evening out lifestyle family.

All of those things to the business because you work so hard on the upfront

that you almost just get absorbed.

And then that becomes a learned behavior.

And so you have to unlearn that behavior.

As the business starts to grow on its own and starts to get fuel.

And that's something that very few people think of.

That's been so interesting.

So the first year for you was just mental, heavy hard work.

Second year a little easier.

And now you've got a different kind of hard work, which is unpicking some of the

hard work that you got very used to in order to get the balance that you were

really looking for it at the beginning.

And, And the aim of course, is to have a business that can run

it for itself, and there's loads of stuff out there about it, but trying

to get yourself away initially for a few weeks, then for a few months

and, trying to, Build a business that can just survive without you.

And yeah, we're okay.

I took eight weeks vacation last year.

I work very hard every other week of the year, but I had eight weeks last year.

Balancing that is the aim right now.

Fabulous.

Thank you so much.

That's really interesting.

Lots of interesting insights from a totally different angle, because

I think lots of people in mid career point might idealize the

idea of owning your own business or turning your work Into a business

that you can grow and then retire.

But it's really brilliant to see what it feels like on the ground for

a second, third, and fourth year.

I wish you continued good luck with that, Steve, and thanks very

much for being in the summit.

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment.

It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas

of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you time.

I call it D.

It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.