Reflecting on Tough Seasons, Overcoming Fear, and Betting on Yourself

A year ago today, I found out my business partner was going to be leaving our company. I woke up to an email at 6:30 that Monday and truthfully, I felt like I had been punched in the gut after I read it. I didn’t see it coming.

The next month was a blur of sorting out details, financial evaluations, buyout negotiations and weighing a lotttt of options to see if I could make the numbers work and continue to build a business I truly loved so much.

Just as my partner needed to make the right decision for her though, I needed to do the same.  Which ultimately, led me to decide to walk away from moving forward with a buyout and decide to start a new company instead.

I cannot tell you how many times I went back and forth on that decision during those 4 weeks. It had taken us 6 years to get our business to that point and honestly I was terrified to be starting from scratch again. Especially because our business had just started to rebound after being hit hard by the pandemic.

With that decision, I was throwing away our name, branding, website with consistent traffic, years of blog posts, top-ranking SEO, established social media accounts, a Facebook community, our email list, products, workshops, freebies and so much more. I knew that I had weighed my options carefully and felt like it was the right decision… but I was still scared. I just wished I had a crystal ball to find out if I had made the right decision or a huge mistake.

Yes, I had so much more business experience than I did when I first started… but maybe that’s what made it scarier than the first time around? Because I knew all of the work that went into starting a business. Could I do all of this again? Could I do it by myself? And could I do all of this while we were still in the middle of a pandemic? I didn’t know for sure, but despite my fear, I decided I was going to try.

And so, for the next 6 weeks, I worked my booty off to get through the remaining projects we had at Bold & Pop and sort through the details we needed to take care of. Then every night, weekend and through the holidays, I worked my hardest on my new brand and website so that it was ready to launch on January 1st. I didn’t have time to waste… so I put my head down and tried to stay focused.

I’m not going to lie, while 10 weeks is a really short amount of time to wrap things up when you think about it… it also felt like the longest 10 weeks of my life. I was in a constant state of wanting it to be over and also feeling like I needed more time to get everything done all at once… I was caught in this perfect storm of transition where I was closing one chapter and starting another… Saying goodbye to one business that I really didn’t want to say goodbye to, while also trying to be excited about starting a new one. There was so much more to it, but I’ll sum it up by just saying I had a lotttt of contradicting emotions.

Beyond just working myself to the bone, I also felt so isolated during that time. The only people who knew what was going on were the clients we were working with, my family and a few close friends. And while my friends and family were so great and did their best to support me, none of them were business owners themselves… and I didn’t feel like anyone truly understood the gravity of the situation. Normally I would have leaned into our amazing Facebook community of business owners or on social media… but obviously I couldn’t really share there either.

If you know me, I’m SUCH an open book… I mean one of my favorite content series to write was our #realtalk series that shared about the real ups and downs as a business owner. And here I was reallyyyy going through a tough transition and I couldn’t share. Then even after everything was finalized and I could share, I chose not to.

Why? Because I was afraid what others might think. I was afraid of the assumptions that might be made. And honestly, I was just really hurt by the whole situation and needed some time to heal. I also had so much fear about the next chapter in general and I didn’t want speaking up to affect either of our new ventures. I genuinely wanted both of us to be able to have a fresh start and staying quiet seemed like the best way to ensure that. So I kept my eyes on the future and focused on moving forward.

So why am I bringing it up now? Because staying quiet has never really been my thing… and to be honest, I really needed to take this time to reflect on the last year. Especially now that there is more space in between those decisions. I think there is so much value in taking time to really reflect on any big changes we make in life and simmer in the lessons and growth that came from them. I also chose to share because I’ve always valued reading raw stories from others and how they’ve made it through difficult chapters.

A year later I can tell you that I made it to the other side. That the fear I felt -- SO MUCH fear--  never amounted to anything. That trusting my gut, staying true to my passions and betting on myself was worth it. And that while tough times may be defining moments for us, they are never our whole stories.

This time last year, I couldn’t see past the first few pages of my new story. Hell, I truly didn’t even know if there was going to be more than a chapter or two of this new business. A year later though… 9 months into Going Bold Studio, I can tell you I have a lot more of this story to write.

In that time, not only have I been able to start a new business, but I’ve been able to grow it beyond anything I could have ever imagined in its first year. With each day, each new business inquiry and each social media connection I made, I moved past my worries a little more. By the time April rolled around, only 3 months in, I had already booked out all of my website design projects. By the time I hit 6 months, I had booked up my entire summer for design projects and filled up my social media client roster. I wasn’t just filling up my projects either, I was getting to work with dream client, after dream client and projects that were advancing my skills even further.

Everything was lining up! Just as I had with my previous business, I went all in and really put my heart into all of my work and it seemed to be connecting with others. At the beginning of 2021, I was in survival mode, just hoping to get by and now having just wrapped Q3 I’m already booking into the new year, making plans for hiring, scaling and growing in 2022 and beyond.

I hope by sharing my story, it reminds you that you are capable of pushing through tough seasons too. That making big changes can be scary but that you shouldn’t let that fear hold you back. That you will push past the doubts and worries that you may have. That your dreams are worth pursuing and that there’s a lot more to your story than even you know. So much can happen in a year when you keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I hope my story will encourage you to keep going and to keep writing your own story page by page because, I for one, cannot wait to read it.