3 Things I Had to Unlearn as a New Business Owner
Transitions are hard. It’s something I’ve said time and time again.
Any real transition requires an identity shift. It requires you to unlearn your previous ways of being or mindsets.
It’s a process.
After spending nearly 15 years in corporate, I found myself in a new chapter I hadn’t fully prepared for: entrepreneurship.
And even though I’d already navigated a series of life and career shifts before this one, becoming a full-time business owner has been the most stretching, revealing, and ultimately fulfilling transition of them all. At least so far it has.
It hasn’t been easy, but it has been full of ease. There’s a difference between the two.
Still, I’ve had to unlearn a lot from my years as a corporate employee. As much as I tried to preserve myself and energy from some of the corporate conditioning, you don’t spend 15 years doing something without some of those things staying with you – even if you don’t want them to or even realize that they’re still with you.
What I’ve had to unlearn from corporate culture
Corporate culture is universal even though each company has its own internal culture. There are some unspoken rules to playing the corporate game.
And everyone knows it’s a game.
I once saw a post on social media from someone who said college teaches us how to be employees and learning how to navigate traditional corporate environments is on-the-job training.
But I didn’t want to create that same culture in my own business — even as a solo entrepreneur.
Here are three of the biggest things I’ve had to unlearn since stepping into entrepreneurship:
1) Urgency
Corporate America treats everything as “urgent” even though you’re not saving lives. There’s this pressure to move fast just to prove you're doing something.
And you’re supposed to treat things as a fire drill. You’re “putting out fires”. Is anything actually on fire? No.
I had to unlearn that.
As an employee, I used to respond to Slack messages and emails as quickly as possible. As a business owner, I move differently. I take the time I need to respond with intention. My general inbox even has an autoresponder that says we’ll get back to you within 48 business hours—sometimes longer depending on the topic.
In business, speed is more important than urgency – they’re not the same. Nothing is urgent. I don’t need to rush. But I do need to make decisions and execute quickly, with clarity and focus.
2) The 9–5 Structure
I actually like routines and rhythms. It was initially challenging to have no structure in my first weeks in business. And I tried to follow the 9-5 structure to “get on track”.
But 9-5 isn’t the only way.
I hope I don’t have to return to a traditional 9-5 because I’ve learned that this structure doesn’t allow me to work at my best levels.
I’m most productive from late morning through early afternoon. After lunch, I usually need time to reset, take a walk, and decompress.
I often circle back to work in the evening, especially if a creative idea hits (creativity usually hits me at night.) And sometimes I work on Sunday nights.
It might sound like I’m working nonstop, but most days I only work 3-4 focused hours. The difference is that I’ve designed my schedule around my energy, not a clock.
I know when I think clearly. I know when I need quiet. I’ve learned how to build around that.
Fitting my business into a corporate mold isn’t the answer. Designing it around me is what’s creating sustainability.
3) Be “Palatable”
I’ll be honest: I think my authenticity cost me a job. I spoke up. I challenged what didn’t make sense. I was real. And real can be threatening in corporate spaces built to preserve the status quo and protect mediocrity.
In the very early stages of my entrepreneurial journey, I was still presenting myself in a corporate way without realizing it.
I internalized the idea that being “professional” meant being controlled, palatable, and never “too much” of anything: too emotional, too loud, too casual, too raw, too real.
But now, I share the real.
I show up as myself, not the boxed-in version. I don’t code-switch my personality to make people comfortable.
Granted, I still want media training because I want to get better at how I present myself without shrinking or overexplaining.
I’ve redefined professionalism for myself. I’ve learned that professionalism can look like:
Following through with integrity
Communicating clearly and directly
Creating safe spaces
Honoring my boundaries and time
Showing up with intention
unlearning is uncomfortable
Transitions will always challenge your sense of identity. They ask you to let go of old versions of yourself that once kept you safe, even if it’s no longer aligned.
Unlearning is uncomfortable, but it’s also how you build something more true. And if you’re building something of your own — whether a business, a new career, or a new season of life — you get to decide what stays and what goes.
You don’t have to carry old definitions of success, work, or worth with you.