How I knew it was time to walk away from a dream – Part 1

The 2022 Edition

I read a post by

Annie Ridout

recently and it really got me thinking.

She was telling the story of Henry Holland, the ‘accidental’ fashion designer and founder of House of Holland, who essentially;

• built a highly successful fashion empire on hyperspeed

• suffered the inevitable growing pains that come with rapid growth

• felt the burn of the pandemic, and then

• his company went into administration.

He’s since redirected his creativity and become a potter btw (which couldn’t sound more like a dreamy, happy ending to me if it tried!).

Now it got me thinking, because it brought a lot of what I’ve been through in my past 11 years of self-employment, right to the forefront of my mind.

In particular the last four years.

They really have been, shall we say, ahem…*something else* 🙃

Now I’m not professing to have built anything near ‘a highly successful fashion empire’ a la Henry Holland!

But in 2020-2022, my coaching business saw so much growth (growth that I thought I wanted with my whole being; that generated over £130k+ in revenue in a relatively short amount of time; that meant I didn’t have a choice but to grow a team alongside me) – I mean, it dysregulated my nervous system to the point that it took me well over a year to notice that I was actually building somebody else’s business entirely.

(My own coach’s, to be specific – and maybe this incredibly problematic side of the coaching industry is a topic for another Substack in itself – I’ve some tales to tell alright!)

The bit that hurt the most