With sweaty palms and my stomach doing backflips, I’m beyond thrilled to tell you I’m turning the page on another chapter of my life.
You see, I grew up with the mindset that you should find a good company, do a good job, and keep climbing the ladder. I got really good at this.
I’ve always loved work. I loved contributing to something in a meaningful way and feeling like I was part of something bigger. I’m also not afraid to say I love money. It certainly doesn’t solve all your problems, but if you spend it on things that make you happy – it sure as heck can make you feel good. The more abundance we can bring in, the better we can enrich the lives of others.
After I had each of my two kids, I was excited to get back to work to flex my brain in a different way, talk to grown-ups, and keep learning and growing.
By doing work I love, I’m modeling excellence for my kids.
I wanted to be an example for my kids. I wanted to show them that moms are successful out in the world, enjoy healthy meals, and have a happy mom to come home to. Shit, I felt so passionate about being a working mom and not apologizing for it that I even wrote a mini-book about it (it’s since been unpublished, so I can make some updates). I woke up every morning at 5:00 a.m., spent countless hours inhaling soy lattes, and stayed up way too late for months to get it done in time for my 35th birthday, and I did it.
Then something changed. I was doing so many things and doing mediocre at all of them. I was doing the minimum at work, rushing around all the time to get to the next thing – work, hockey practice, horseback riding, dinner, rinse, and repeat — oops, forgot to shower! I was too stressed and scattered to spend more than a minute saying goodnight to my kids.
Something was broken. I was doing life wrong.
I feel like an ass telling you this because these are all the things I preached about in my book, and I wasn’t even listening to my own advice. I got lost somewhere along the way.
I felt like I was having an emergency. I needed a change — and I needed it so urgently that I dove in face first.
It was time to create a life I looked forward to living.
Last year, having been a few years into blogging, and writing internal communications as a side project at work — I realized that doing that kind of work lit me up inside. I wanted to do it all the time. I craved more. My corporate job gave me a lot of creative freedom with some of my work — and I learned to create my voice.
I wanted to help more people with their writing, so I reached out to some of my friends and former colleagues with an offer. I told them I’d give them a few hours of my time to write or edit anything they needed help with in return for some candid feedback and a testimonial.
A few people took a chance on me — and I was able to give them things they could share with the world that they’d been holding onto for ages — a LinkedIn blog post that made magazines pick up the phone, bios that make photographers confident to share their website, proposals that make clients say, “F*CK YA!”, and even a job description that got someone a big raise and promotion at his startup.
I was onto something. I updated my website, told a few more friends, threw up a price list, and carried on. I didn’t do any advertising, I didn’t pimp my services to everyone I knew, and something magical happened—people found me and hired me. Every evening, I’d write and edit my ass off for my new clients. I received rave reviews, and they’d pass my name along to someone else, and someone else, and someone else. Before I knew it, I had so much extra work in addition to my day job that I had to start turning it down.
I explained to my kids, that for the next few months, mommy would be really busy with work. I told them it might seem like I’m working all the time — and really, I was. I’m doing this extra work now so that I can be around more for you later. I hope they understand someday or that I’ll make it up to them in the coming years.
I told them I’d be able to get them from school at the end of the school day. I wouldn’t need to drop them off at 6:30 a.m. anymore to catch the early train or beat Chicago traffic. I’d come on field trips and we wouldn’t need to eat breakfast in the car anymore.
This week, I close a chapter that has been so familiar to me — 13 years, to be exact.
I officially resigned from my corporate job and am diving into this new life full-time. With the support of my husband, kids, and former colleagues, I get to work wherever I can have an internet connection.
But first, coffee.
PS – I could not have done this without the support of my husband. Last year, he asked me to “prove it” – that I could start a thriving copywriting business. Well, I accepted the challenge, and I did. Now I can’t wait to keep going — and stop nuking frozen veggie burgers because that’s all I have time for.
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