How Losing My Dream Job Skyrocketed My Career
[Music]
two years ago
i found myself wearing cut off denim
shorts to a business meeting
that was about to change my life i
remember this vividly because although i
was supposed to be
running around planning a photo shoot
for the magazine i was working for
i was called into a mandatory meeting
with the head of publishing
mandatory was written in all caps on the
email invite with no
other details as i was in a cab crossing
the city to get to work on time
all i could think about was that i was
going to be sitting in a room filled
with
very important people wearing denim
shorts
i was 26 and had a job most people build
their careers up to
in three years i had graduated with a
journalism degree
was hired full-time at one of canada’s
most iconic women’s magazines
before i graduated and worked my way up
to the home editor position
meaning i was in charge of the entire
home decor section of the magazine
i was producing photo shoots writing and
planning content for a magazine
that had been in publication for 90
years 90 years i knew that this job
was a really big deal when i arrived at
the office
and stepped out of the elevator in my
denim shorts that thursday
i immediately knew something was wrong
the entire floor
was which was usually buzzing with
energy nails hitting keyboards
food wafting from the industrial kitchen
that produced the magazine’s recipes
was eerily quiet people were huddled in
groups of four or five
quietly whispering amongst themselves
somebody told me that a massive layoff
was about to happen
and we would be split up into two groups
one was safe
and one was not which group would i be
in
i felt as though i couldn’t breathe as
an anxious person
the feeling of dread is always bobbing
along the horizon of my mind
especially when i feel like i have
something really good
as if it’s not possible to feel
consistent instrumentable joy
without it being punctured by a massive
wave of letdown
and before this thursday i was trying to
hold on to that feeling of joy more than
usual
as one of the youngest editors on the
team i realized that i could bring
something different to the home decor
section of the magazine
which is why a year before this thursday
i had pitched a youtube video series
all about helping millennials decorate
on a budget after i began to see a gap
in the world of home decor
i noticed that a lot of my friends
didn’t put time or effort into
decorating their rental apartments
and when i asked them why they told me
why bother putting money into a home
that you’re just renting temporarily
and yet according to a study done by
onepoll
42 percent of american millennials
that’s almost
half say that they want to buy a home
but just can’t afford it
where was the decorating advice for us
where were those solutions and magazines
to make our not so temporary rental
homes
a little more stylish and functional
without breaking the bank
that’s when the homeprint was born and
alongside a team of videographers
i produced 19 youtube episodes over the
span of a year for the magazine
i would make over small rental
apartments bedrooms
bathrooms all the while sticking to a
tight budget
and layering in lots of attainable
decorating tips
each video got an average of 200 to 400
views on youtube
nothing much until about a year in when
we published the second last episode we
would ever film
over the span of about three weeks this
studio apartment makeover
went from 200 to 1000
to 10 000 to 500 000
to just over 1 million
views 1 million views
i felt like i was on the verge of
something big
i was on the verge of seeing all of
those long hours
studying for exams and all those
tireless nights worrying about my future
in university
pay off i was experiencing what it was
like to be successful
it was like this momentum i had built up
over a year
was turning into something i’d always
wanted to be doing
as i walked down the hall to the meeting
room in my denim shorts that thursday
single file behind 40 other editors i
kept telling myself that i wasn’t going
to be let go
i was bringing something new to the team
pushing the envelope on digital media
exceeding expectations with millions of
views on my latest video
but i knew it was over as soon as i saw
executives in business suits
lining the large glass meeting room
there was a man in a crisp black suit at
the front
and the head of publishing was standing
beside him crossing
and uncrossing his legs not looking any
of us in the eyes as we filed in
the room was crowded and warm and my
whole body was shaking
and i had to keep reminding myself this
is real
this isn’t a joke i cried with my head
down as the head of publishing
thanked us all for our hard work and
said that we would be let go immediately
i can’t quite describe the feeling of
losing something right when it’s at the
peak of triumph
but in sheryl sandberg’s book option b
she talks about how to build resilience
after experiencing a traumatic event as
she did
after suddenly losing her husband when
she was 45.
she talks about how we can apply the
same tools of coping with the death of a
loved one to losing a job
and says that not only is it devastating
but losing a job can also trigger
anxiety
depression and rip away self-confidence
when i woke up the next day my head was
foggy and my eyes were tight from crying
my dream career and this newfound
momentum
was taken away from me in the span of
ten minutes
the grief of knowing i was never going
to get this thing back that consumed my
whole life
took over my whole body and i felt
really empty
the home print was no longer mine the
lights used to produce the videos the
editors the videographers
the budget the one million views i had
accumulated just three weeks before
they were no longer mine the momentum
was there
and people were engaged and wanting more
but how was i going to keep this going
without those resources
a week later i started my own youtube
channel
uploading home decor hauls and small
makeovers that i did for my friend’s
apartments
i tagged every video with the home primp
so that viewers finding that viral video
would have more of a chance of finding
my new channel
my friend carla who shot the home primp
was also let go and said she shoot she
said
she’d shoot and edit a few videos i used
my severance money to pay her
and we began to shoot every week after
three months i joined an influencer
network who helped me land brand deals
and sponsorships
which for many is the main form of
income as a youtuber
i kept putting out a video every week on
my channel and six months after i lost
my
job my own channel had over 30 000
subscribers
i landed a couple of brand deals and my
videos were monetized meaning i was
making a small amount of ad revenue from
youtube
but the question of how i was going to
produce these videos and make them
bigger and better and with what money
was still looming over my head a month
after hitting 30 000 subscribers
just before the holiday season i got a
really bad chest infection
and i was in bed for almost half the
month i wasn’t shooting and therefore
wasn’t uploading any new content
and therefore wasn’t making much ad
revenue
i also wasn’t landing any brand deals
because it was the end of year for
brands
most people were on holidays and plus my
channel following was still quite small
it was at this point that my severance
money had run out
it was then that it hit me how did i
ever think i could do this as a
full-time job
for the first time in six months after i
had lost my job at the magazine
i let myself think about job searching
at the beginning of march i made a call
to the influencer network i had signed
with
and told them i thought i needed to quit
i remember saying out loud
how could i have thought this was going
to make money how did i think i was
going to fund this
i was embarrassed that i thought i could
ever have my own company
and make money as a youtuber i hadn’t
even been to business school
i know that so many people are probably
feeling exactly how i did
that march there is so much uncertainty
smothering us all and as a student who
has just graduated
i can imagine that having the whole
world at your fingertips feels
terrifying
and not in a and not in an exhilarating
way
like it typically would as a new
graduate
instead of feeling like you’re getting
on the world’s largest roller coaster
with no idea how the ride ends i would
instead imagine
that it feels like you’re completely
lost in a gigantic theme park
where none of the rides are working you
don’t even have the option
of getting on that scary roller coaster
you’re stuck
i was there too but less than
24 hours after i made that phone call
wanting to quit
i got an email that i had landed a brand
deal that would fund my videos for the
next
six months there are two things i think
can happen in a situation like this when
we feel as though we’ve lost
everything we either keep going with
what we know
like hopping back into a nine to five
that we’re only mildly passionate about
or we decide to trust that there’s
something
even greater on the other side of that
loss and seize the opportunity to do
what we
really want in life maybe that’s
backpacking across the world
going back to school in our 50s or
starting a small art business from
scratch
in a 2019 study done by elena christina
and michael g pratt they researched the
morning patterns and career paths of the
employees of a company that went
bankrupt and found that there’s two
different kinds of responses to job loss
as people search for new employment
christina and pratt use the words
recreators and repurposers to describe
the two different paths that people end
up taking if they’ve lost their jobs
recreators
are those who find similar positions in
the same industry
repurposers usually leave the field all
together to pursue entrepreneurship
in this particular study they noticed
that it wasn’t money or networking that
guided the path these employees chose
after losing their jobs
instead it was what they chose to hold
onto from their jobs
instead of focusing on what they lost
both groups of recreators and
repurposers
tried to figure out what they could save
from their experience
at the company they were let go from
one of the questions i get asked the
most is how he became an entrepreneur
and looking back on my experience i
always say well it was just so simple
i just did it but i realized that i too
as a repurposer
tried to figure out how i could take
what i had gained at the magazine
and producing these videos and how i
could do it on my own
without the support of a massive brand
i try to remember when people ask me
this question how scary taking that leap
of faith to start my own channel was
and how i almost didn’t make it past the
six month mark
i think about how many people must come
to this crossroad at least once in their
life
and not have what i believe is the
secret ingredient to coming out on top
of a huge
loss like this it’s trust
because the truth is i was already
equipped with so much of the knowledge
from the magazine on how to produce a
youtube channel
i had been doing it for the last year
the hardest and most difficult part that
i feel we have
all felt at least once in our lives is
trusting that i could make it happen for
myself
i would have never left my dream job if
i hadn’t have been let go
because i never thought i could bring
the happiness it brought me
all on my own it never occurred to me
that i could create my own stability
with a high paying salary
and it also never occurred to me that i
could be my own boss
it’s been a year and a half since i
almost quit and then landed that deal
i have built up a channel with over 300
000 subscribers and counting i have a
six-figure business
and two full-time employees and two
part-time employees
and i think back to last year when i
made that phone call
and how i was on the verge of something
big
but this time i was on the verge of
losing
losing something that’s so much more
important than success
youtube views or money i was on the
verge of losing the trust
that i could make my dream career happen
by myself
when i think back to getting let go in
my cut off denim shorts
i can still feel the grief and emptiness
i was left with that thursday
and i think about how i could have
chosen to go down a different path
the one where trusting myself wasn’t an
option and that really scares me
because if i hadn’t have lost my dream
job that day and trusted myself enough
to take what i’d learned
and kept going i wouldn’t be here now at
the peak of the happiest life i could
have
ever imagined for myself we’ve all heard
that you should dream big
but that doesn’t seem possible when
you’ve been dealt a hand that crushes
your confidence and your ambition
wake up every day and do that thing you
know how to do best
keep doing it until you realize that
your dreams
have suddenly come to life and that
they’re bigger than you
ever imagined they would be thank you