What corporate never taught me: real-World lessons from entrepreneurship

What Corporate Never Taught Me- Real-World Lessons from Entrepreneurship, Grace Cheng & Co

I once heard a stay-at-home mom say, after becoming a millionaire entrepreneur:

“Success is being able to choose to be with your family at 10am on a Monday when they need you.”

That hit.

The reality is, transitioning from a corporate girl to an entrepreneur has been 10x more challenging than even moving and settling across continents.

And I mean that, having lived and worked across Hong Kong, the UK, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore!

My transition from being a “forever corporate girl” into entrepreneurship, and blending it with being a creator, creating content and monetising it, started half-jokingly, half-seriously, when I said: “This is the one experience puzzle I haven’t yet collected.” So I dove in, just to see how it’d go.

[Update] I wrote another article about >> read here: the progress and strategic shift

Entrepreneurship has opened up exponential growth opportunities in every direction:

• True business experience
  Starting solo and learning through real world touchpoints on how to start, run, grow, and scale a business from the ground up.

• Product-market fit
  Even product folks in big companies talking about this every day often haven’t lived through it from 0 to 1, without all the corporate resources and structure backing them.

• High agency
  Leverage challenges in conflict, leadership, communication, and alignment within corporations are often better addressed from the inside through deeper understanding and perspective gained after experiencing entrepreneurship.

• Marketing

  Totally flipped my understanding of what marketing really is—when you're "forced" to dive deep and learn hands-on, especially with limited resources and without the backing of a fancy corporate brand. It's about truly understanding content–audience/market fit, unlocking real challenges, and upgrading yourself to the next level.

• Branding is deeply undervalued.
  It’s not just about visibility, it’s about building credibility and trust with others.

  When people trust you, opportunities and deals flow in naturally.
  There’s no need to force or push anyone to buy because the connection and confidence are already there.

• From employee mindset to entrepreneurial mindset

  One of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve made is moving from the idea of “just doing my job right and getting it done” to operating from a place of high agency.

  That means taking full ownership and responsibility, not just for the wins, but for the mistakes too. I take the credit when things go well, and I take accountability when they don’t.

• Cultivating resilience: 10x faster than in a 9–5

  Entrepreneurship requires you to build resilience at an accelerated pace.

• You have to adapt to challenges quickly, learn how to care for yourself, and create space to sit with failure, process emotions, and move forward.

  I recently shared a story about how I handled a mistake I made with high-agency mode
  👉 [Read it here]
  

• Accountability as an entrepreneur
  In the beginning, when you’re starting from scratch, it’s likely just you.

  That can feel lonely, overwhelming, and can bring moments of doubt or the urge to return to your old life.

  That’s why keeping yourself accountable is essential and so is finding the right people to walk this path with.

  Having peers or mentors who’ve gone through similar journeys makes a huge difference. Asking for help, leaning on support, and sharing the highs and lows is not a weakness, it’s wisdom.

You are never alone.

And you always have the option to ask for help, without needing external permission

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Let’s be honest, being a “shining star” in a big corporate role gives you a platform.

It’s relatively easy to get invited to speak on stages, be featured, and be “respected.”

Things have shifted.

It when you go independent, whether as an entrepreneur, solopreneur, creator, consultant, or coach, you quickly learn that opportunities don’t come easy. You have to build everything from scratch.

Business. Sales. Operation. Product. Branding. Value. Credibility. All of it.

Shout out to everyone walking this independent path and shout out to myself, too, for having the courage to still shine on global stages post-corporate life.

I used to think navigating career and life across Europe and Asia was hard enough through my 10s, 20s, and now 30s—places like Hong Kong, the UK, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore shaped who I am.

But testing entrepreneurship?

Zero regrets.

Not just because I collected a new “experience puzzle,” but because entrepreneurship added a whole new depth to my life:

• Real-world business acumen
  not just marketing, product, or data from within a silo, but the whole picture. All of it. Hands-on.

• Unshakable resilience and courage
  the kind that no bad day or setback can touch. Owning all the ups and downs builds you.

• New levels of self-discipline
  not the kind where you show up to an office on time, but the kind where you build habits, a lifestyle, and structure that serve you.

• A redefined vision of life ownership
  freedom of time, location, resources, and relationships.
  

Here’s to every independent entrepreneur, creator, solopreneur, and builder out there.

Keep going.

You’re writing a story that will one day be someone else’s reason to start.