I can't go on / I'll go on

Nearly a year ago I was laid off. When it happened I reserved the most ungenerous judgments for myself — I was stupid, bad at picking jobs, a bad employee, unlikeable, untalented. I did not deserve stability and I was not bound to find it in employment anywhere. My rational brain knew this was just a tough break, but it was easier to assign myself some sort of fault to explain why this happened not once but twice in a year. I really didn’t think I could go on. I spent a lot of time in July 2023 rotting on the couch and feeling bad for myself.

If I had to oversimplify it, the common thread throughout my adult life has been seeking stability: a stable family, a stable romantic relationship and friendships, a stable relationship with myself and my body and my identity, a stable job. My 20s were turbulent. I was not good at maintaining friendships, I sought out relationships that were not good for me, I was not kind to myself. I thought I had my dream job when I was 23, but I walked away from it three years later, feeling completely disillusioned, burned and burned out, and unsupported by my managers. My anxiety consumed me. I worried a lot about what other people thought of me. I wondered if I was a good person. I wondered if anyone cared about me. 

When I gambled on myself last year and started 18 Olives, my consultancy, it felt like a huge bet. It wasn’t just my reputation and livelihood at stake: I was bringing on a business partner, Eliza, who was taking an enormous leap of faith by quitting her job to join me. I was determined not to screw this up. So far, we haven’t. September will mark a year of us being incorporated and launching 18 Olives, but we really started working on it last summer, when Eliza emailed me and we met for coffee and decided we were actually going to do this thing.

I know a lot of people start businesses by themselves. Having a business partner is helpful for me because I need the accountability and camaraderie of another person. This work is siloed and kind of alienating, and having someone to text to get a gut check about a client or something I’ve written makes it less lonely. I feel so privileged in finding Eliza: she is the perfect business partner who showed up one day in my inbox. We work well together and have complementary personalities, and it’s been gratifying to see the new things we try — whether it’s starting a newsletter for a consumer brand or building a social media presence for a hedge fund’s activist campaign — just…work out. Eliza is a critical thinker, a fantastic writer, and she’s always willing to adapt and try new things (she handles our operations and finances and I’m so grateful to have a partner who’s willing to learn how to do that while I handle sales and new business). She’s also very funny. She pushes me out of my comfort zone — to ask for more money from a new client or set boundaries, things I would never do myself. 

When people ask how 18 Olives is going, I’m thankful that my response has been the same for the past 6 or 7 months: It’s good. We’re busy. We can pay ourselves every two weeks. Every client we have has come through my network, and we’ve avoided doing much outreach. Some days are rough and it’s hard not to take it personally. Writing is so tangled up in my identity, but it’s also a commoditized product we sell. I think there’s realistically a cap to how much revenue we can drive while it’s still just the two of us doing the work, but I don’t think we’re there yet. 

A year ago I didn’t think the life I have now was possible. I’m grateful for not giving up on myself, and instead doing the opposite and taking a major leap of faith on my own abilities and network. I’m grateful for the support of my friends, my partner, and my peers. I don’t always feel like persevering, and more than once I’ve crumpled into tears because it’s stressful to know how to navigate the future when you’re building something new and uncertain. I don’t know how long I’ll keep working for myself — for now, I feel confident in doing it more or less indefinitely — but it feels good to know I won’t be laying myself off this week, and that I can always pick myself up and figure it out again the next time I need to.