“It’s like there’s this surge of energy,” the shamanic healer told me. “I see a pipe with all these big, creative ideas. But then, it just stops. It’s being cut off.” She used her thin hands to draw a stopping motion above her head. I nodded. Of course I knew exactly what she was talking about.
In 2017, after my daughter was born, there was a magical year when I first moved to Denver. We were living in a rental townhouse, and she was crawling all over the floors while I was setting up my coaching business. I sold my first resume package, and then my first coaching session. My dad would come over to watch the kids and I would drive to a Starbucks and work on my website, Rose Gold Careers. I was doing it, I was really doing it.
But back then I didn’t know the difference between working for someone else and having something of your own. So I went for it all, figuring all I needed to do was pull together some more cash and it didn’t matter how I got it.
So I went on Upwork to look for gigs. At first, it was odd jobs here and there: a 25-year old tech manager is applying to business school, and could I help him with his resume? Sure. Those were easy. One night, after the kids went to bed, I did a quick search for part-time jobs. It couldn’t hurt, I figured. Well, a 10-hour a week gig at an edtech company quickly turned into a part-time job.
That part-time job turned into a full time job, and I just never thought to say no. It was good money and interesting work. I was really transparent with them from the first conversation that I was a coach, and had no intention of giving up my coaching business. We shook hands. Everyone understood.
But here’s what happens: when you have an official job at a company and then a side hustle that is for you — the “real” job always wins. Why? There’s deadlines. People are counting on you. Clients expecting things. So if you have 30 minutes, you’re going to give it to the real job. And here, I think, is where I got a little lost.
Look, the job wasn’t even bad. It was fully remote and the people were smart and nice and I got to travel to San Francisco every once in a while and go to conferences in Vegas and run a booth at TechCrunch Disrupt. I had to put on real clothes and leave the kids at home on business trips, and I think it helped me regain a sense of my professional self after having kids.
I just always had a gnawing feeling though, like, hey — what about that thing you were trying to do? That business that you were trying to grow? You were just getting started: trying things, experimenting, playing and learning. And then you went and gave all of your time and emotional fidelity away.
So back to the shaman. I was in the middle of my 3-year shamanic practitioner training, and she was one of the shamans in residence that we could go see to experience healing for ourselves and understand the kind of container that we were meant to create for others.
“Do you know what this is, this stoppage?” she asks.
I nodded. I knew. I had — for a million good and practical reasons — unintentionally abandoned myself. I just put other things first. Intellectually, I knew why I was still at this job: it was paying off the last of my student loans, I was still a young mom, it was nice to feel needed. And yet. And yet. It wasn’t at all where I wanted to be.
One day soon after, I was so frustrated I started to cry. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. It’s like the answer was through that door, but in order to walk through it I had to leave financial security behind. That felt so scary and unfair! What if I went after my dreams and discovered I wasn’t that good at it?
I was alone in my home office, with the sun streaming through the windows, and I laid down on my carpet and just wept. “Please,” I asked the universe, “just let me do something better. Just let me do better.”
In hindsight, what I meant by “better” was please let me go back to what I was doing — on the road to finding myself!
Here’s an analogy: it’s like you’re sitting happily in a bright square in Sante Fe, carefully knitting a beautiful tapestry, a 6 x 6 blanket that will be passed down to your beloved children — and their children. Suddenly, a nice stranger approaches you and tells you he’s lost his golden retriever! Will you help him find it? Then you spend hours and weeks trying to find this dog. First, because you are very good at finding lost things. Second, you just want to be helpful! But one day you wake up and you realize you are barefoot, a hundred miles away, wandering around looking for this dog that you realize is never going to appear. What about the blanket!!! What about your life?
So please, oh please, help me find myself back to me! Back to something my little heart actually gives a shit about. I was there once. I had it; I was so close. Because I cannot stay here, hunting for this lost dog. It’s a lost cause and it’s not even my cause. Nothing hurts more than losing a part of yourself and knowing that part is still there, waiting for you.
In shamanism, this process of finding a lost part of you is called soul retrieval. The theory is that when traumatic or intense events happen, part of your soul anticipates that danger is coming and so it flees. This explains the out of body experience or feeling like something is missing phantom quality that people describe sometimes. So the soul goes away somewhere safe, and lies in wait — hoping to be reunited and reintegrated with the full self.
Do you ever get so fed up and desperate enough that it propels you towards change? Like you’ll think and think and analyze until one day something takes over you and you just can’t take it anymore — you leave, you rage quit, you just get yourself out of there. It’s like a tiny explosion after ages of slow burn?
That’s what happened for me. The event was I finally paid off my student loans. $140,000 for business school were finally done. Once that monthly payment was no longer looming over me, I felt free to leave. So I did. And do you want to know something? I did NOT regret leaving. Ha! That sounds so terrible. But noooo. The thought never crossed my mind. Because I had been staring out the window for so long, wanting and aching for it to open — when it finally did, all I did was run. Ran like hell and never looked back.
As a career coach, I meet with people who work in Corporate America — at large companies like Google and Apple, and at Series A and B startups in Fintech and such. They come to me because there is something they want to change. They’re unhappy because they’re not getting along with their boss, they used to be heard but they’re not anymore, they don’t see the growth potential at the company.
I totally get it. And I will help them strategize: what do you need to pack before you leave? What debts do you have to pay before you can go? But I never, ever question the core truth that you are a caged bird and you want to fly.
Of. Course. You. Want. To. Fly!!!
What the hell! What are we even talking about? We are not debating that. I believe you, one hundred percent. What does it mean to fly? I’ll tell you. It means taking up the painting practice again, starting a blog, starting a Substack, writing the screenplay, starting your coaching business, leaving corporate to go run a food truck, traveling the world on sabbatical for three months and never going back, taking up freelance writing, taking singing lessons, finally writing the great American novel, going to the conference, and generally doing what your heart desires.
Or, it means speaking up and finally telling your boss the truth at work, requesting a transfer because your department sucks, applying to jobs outside of your industry or company to try something new, going to get a certification and investing in yourself, going after another Master’s degree, reaching out to people in your network for help and to have conversations, and transmuting your angst and pain into something productive. We all have pain! All of us! But it is up to you to transform it, and use it to help your future self.
If you made it this far, thank you. I’m currently typing on a plane coming back from Upstate New York for the eclipse (it was magical) and so perhaps this is a little longer than usual, lol.
I’m going to end this week’s post with a section I’d like to call the “women supporting women” corner. I have a few close friends that are following their creativity and entrepreneurial genius and so let’s do a little spotlight:
My dear friend Wendy Yang Clark, who was my cheerleading partner and bestie in Hong Kong is opening The Pearl, an inclusive pilates and yoga movement studio in City Island, New York.
My friend Sophia Chabbott, who used to sit next to me at WWD when we were young, launched a skincare line called Testament Beauty — featuring face oils and Turkish coffee masks that smell amazing.
My bestie Jenny Huang has created modern Chinese red envelopes, infusing them with luxury for our generation, called Moonnaco - available for order soon.
If you want to get the insider take on being a product manager in SF, follow my friend Sophia on TikTok, where she gives really practical and easy to digest advice!
If you need to get away from some me time, visit my friend Alison’s website at Novel World Travel, who specializes in cruises, family trips, and knows the international market inside and out!
xo
Mandy
PS. Thank you SO MUCH for everyone who purchased the “Should I Quit” journals. You are beautiful humans and I am freaking out!!! When I first had this idea to create a physical workbook to help you uncover, lay out, and name your career mess — with the goal of gaining clarity and hearing your own voice again — it was just that, an idea. Now this awesome community has started buying them and it’s giving me so much energy and hope and I can’t wait to keep creating these things for you. I’ll be shipping more out this week! You can order yours here for $28.
