Episode 66
Bet On Yourself (Even When Nobody Else Will)
The CEO said something shitty to me at 8:00 in the morning and I resigned by 8:30. There was no plan. There was no thought process. There was just a body that physically could not do it for one more day.
So I called a family member. Someone who owns a business, has owned one for years, who understands small business, who had let me call and cry through every terrible month of that job. In my mind I was talking to exactly the right person.
I told them I didn't think I could go back to work. That I thought I had to find a way to work for myself. That I didn't know what that looked like, but I thought I could do it.
And they said: no. That's a terrible idea.
Every ounce of cobbled-together confidence I'd scraped up in the days since — gone. All the air went out of the universe. What I heard was I don't think you should bet on yourself.
I don't think that's what they meant. But that's what I heard.
This episode is what came after. The consulting company that started completely by accident. The job I took because someone who loved me told me it was what I was supposed to do. The boss who told me "it's not if you get it, it's when" during early COVID, while I was the primary caretaker for my mom, who had just had an organ transplant. The fact that I have spent years remembering that I quit that job when actually — I've just realised — they fired me.
Which is fine, by the way. Getting fired gets a bad rap. Let someone pay you to go away. There is no greater joy in life.
Six years on, I make significantly more than the person who told me not to start my own business. I don't say that to brag. I say it because somebody else's faith in you should not be the thing that decides whether you bet on yourself. Even people who love you will give you bad advice. Even people who know their own business very well might not know yours. Take in opinions. Let them influence your perception. Don't let them make the decision.
Then Alison brings a Small Talk from Tamara in Louisiana, whose son was diagnosed autistic at five. Her mother-in-law said she was letting doctors label him. Her father said she was looking for excuses. Her husband believed it immediately and has been his biggest champion ever since. She asked: how do you love someone who won't do the work of understanding the person you love most?
Don't sit at the table with them.
I have an infinite amount of love and a finite amount of space. The love is awarded whether you want it or not — once I give it to you, I don't take it back. The space is awarded on a merit system, and you have to earn it.
You are worth betting on. I would bet on you. So you should bet on you too.
🎧 Different, Not Broken — honest, funny conversations about neurodivergence, mental health, burnout, and being a person.
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Contains strong language.
Transcript
I called up my family member and I said, I don't think I can
Speaker:go back to work. I think I have to find a way
Speaker:to work for myself. And I don't know what that looks like,
Speaker:but I think I can do it. I don't know what that looks like. I'm
Speaker:not saying that having a job is bad. I'm not saying that you should start
Speaker:your business over having a job. I'm not saying any of that. I am
Speaker:saying that you are worth betting on and I would bet on you.
Speaker:And so you should bet on you too. Boop. Hi
Speaker:everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different Not Broken,
Speaker:which is our podcast on exactly that, that there are a lot of people
Speaker:in this world walking around feeling broken, and the reality is you're just different
Speaker:and that's fine. I've owned
Speaker:a consulting company for like 5 years, maybe 6. Ooh, 6 years. Yeesh.
Speaker:Yeah, I guess it's like 6 years now. That's scary. How's that possible? But yeah,
Speaker:I've been consulting with other companies for 6 years. I've owned my own companies, a
Speaker:consulting company, and also other companies in the meantime, but a lot of what I
Speaker:do, even while owning other companies,
Speaker:is working with startups and building their businesses and stuff.
Speaker:I don't know if that was ever the plan. It's just kind of where I
Speaker:ended up. That's not really the important part of
Speaker:it. My consulting company started kind of accidentally after
Speaker:I left a job also almost 6 years ago, 5 and a half years
Speaker:ago. That was just atrociously bad for me. And
Speaker:the transition out of that job felt like
Speaker:it was a very bizarre combination. There was this initial period where I was like,
Speaker:I'm gonna die and my life is over and
Speaker:I'm never gonna find another job and everything's terrible. And
Speaker:that was a very real part of it. And I won't say that it was
Speaker:quick. I found some version of a backbone fairly
Speaker:quickly. Because I was presented with a problem and I was gonna fix it,
Speaker:right? I had just left a job. I felt terrible
Speaker:about the fact that I lost this job. I was embarrassed about the fact that
Speaker:this job ended, and I was definitely going to
Speaker:save face and make it so that nobody could ever say that this
Speaker:was something that I did wrong, right? And so
Speaker:I did what I always do, which is just started moving. I just started
Speaker:doing things. I just started talking to people. I just started doing— I had no
Speaker:idea where I was headed, but I just started doing things. I don't know if
Speaker:anybody's noticed this, but that might be how I manage my stress, is to
Speaker:touch things and get into trouble by trying to do
Speaker:too much. That's a thing. And I had this thought because that was
Speaker:such a traumatic experience. It really was. It
Speaker:started out as what I can Genuinely describe as what felt
Speaker:like the best job in the world, and then 5
Speaker:years in was like Chernobyl
Speaker:would be like, whoa, that place is toxic. It was that
Speaker:bad. And I kept it all inside. I kept it to myself.
Speaker:I didn't really tell anybody. I had a couple of colleagues who we talked about
Speaker:with it, but like nobody knew how small I felt, how insignificant
Speaker:I felt, how— Yeah. How bad it had been for my mental health, how much
Speaker:I had let them believe, how much I had let them let me or make
Speaker:me believe about myself. I really hadn't communicated that to anybody. I don't even know
Speaker:that I had really understood the full depths of that at the time. And when
Speaker:I left, it's not like my husband and I sat down and we made a
Speaker:plan that this is destroying me and I've gotta get away
Speaker:and I need to go do something else. The CEO said something
Speaker:shitty to me at 8:00 AM. And I
Speaker:resigned by 8:30. There was no giant thought
Speaker:process. There was nothing. It was, I physically
Speaker:can't do this anymore. And so all of that to say
Speaker:that as I started to better understand the reality of what was happening
Speaker:in my life right then, I felt this like
Speaker:crushing sense that I could not go back to another
Speaker:job. Now, some of that might've been burnout. It definitely was burnout. Yeah.
Speaker:Some of that might have been a really shitty sense of identity at
Speaker:that time and trying to both distance myself and hold on
Speaker:to this identity that I had for so long. I don't even know what,
Speaker:but I just was like, do I start my own business? And I wanna be
Speaker:clear, I didn't know what that business was. I did not know
Speaker:what that business was. It's not like I was like, I've done this thing for
Speaker:a million years and I'm gonna do that thing. thing instead of going
Speaker:back to work. I just was like, maybe I start my own business because
Speaker:I don't think I can work for anybody again. And I had some family
Speaker:members who had been incredibly supportive during that period, who
Speaker:had let me call and cry, and who had my back
Speaker:in trying to figure out all of the things that you figure out when you
Speaker:have a huge life change that precipitates grief. And that's what it was— it was
Speaker:definitely grieving this thing that I thought I was gonna have that I definitely did
Speaker:not have anymore. And so I called up one of my family members and
Speaker:they own a business. They've owned a business for a long time. They get small
Speaker:business. In my mind, I was talking to the right person. And I called up
Speaker:my family member and I said, I don't think I can go back
Speaker:to work. I think I have to find a way to
Speaker:work for myself. And I don't know what that looks like, but I,
Speaker:I think I can do it. I don't know what that looks like. And
Speaker:I don't know what I expected in return, but what I got in
Speaker:return was not whatever that was. Because I think
Speaker:out of, I don't know, maybe being protective, maybe
Speaker:it must have been being protective and trying to keeping in
Speaker:mind that I have kids. But the advice that I got back was,
Speaker:no, no, that's a terrible idea. And it was like shocking to me because this
Speaker:person owned a business. This person had been in their own business for a long
Speaker:time. This person had supported me in all of
Speaker:my challenges in a corporate environment. And I just went,
Speaker:what do you mean? And they said, think about it, your skills are in demand
Speaker:now, but they might not be if running a business doesn't work and you have
Speaker:to go back to the workforce. He was like, you should probably just find a
Speaker:job. I don't know that not finding a job is the way to go. It
Speaker:took every ounce of
Speaker:cobbled-together confidence that I had managed in the
Speaker:days since this thing had happened and
Speaker:sucked it right out of— like, all of the air was gone from the universe.
Speaker:Everything— I felt so small. I felt so
Speaker:stupid. This person who runs a successful business is telling me that I would
Speaker:never be able to run my own business, or that running my own business will
Speaker:probably be a disaster, and then I won't be able to get a job. My
Speaker:kids are gonna starve. I'm being selfish. Just go find a job.
Speaker:It didn't feel as bad as the environment that I
Speaker:had been in before, but it felt pretty terrible. It was the first day that
Speaker:I felt like maybe I had some sea legs under me. It was the first
Speaker:day that I thought maybe there's something out there that is more than
Speaker:a job that sucks your soul dry. Maybe I can go find that
Speaker:thing. Maybe I can create that thing. And to have somebody
Speaker:who was so close to me and who felt like they were 100% in my
Speaker:corner for whatever came outta my mouth an hour ago say,
Speaker:no, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think you should bet on
Speaker:yourself. That's what I heard. I don't think that's what they meant, but that's what
Speaker:I heard. I don't think you should bet on yourself. I accidentally
Speaker:ignored them. It was not my intention. I don't know what
Speaker:my intention was. I think my intention was to take a little bit of time
Speaker:Figure out what was next, meet some people, shake some hands, kiss
Speaker:some babies, find whatever's next. And to
Speaker:their credit, I did find a job
Speaker:that was in the skill set that they told me I should be focusing
Speaker:on. So I started accidentally
Speaker:consulting. Very genuinely, my consulting company started on accident.
Speaker:I was just networking with people. Because I didn't know what was out there.
Speaker:I hadn't looked for a job maybe ever. I'd
Speaker:never been in an earnest job hunt, like, except maybe during college.
Speaker:It was not anything that I was used to. To me, like, every
Speaker:job that I had gotten, I got introduced to somebody, and I just honestly happened
Speaker:to be in the right place at the right time. So this idea of an
Speaker:earnest job search was, like, completely foreign to me. And so I was like, let
Speaker:me just— like, there's tons of stuff happening out in the world that I have
Speaker:never had time to engage with in this digital health world that I work in.
Speaker:Let me go see, let me go meet some people. And so I started to
Speaker:meet people, I started to build some relationships. I started— for reasons I
Speaker:to this day can't explain, people find me shockingly credible. Literally, I
Speaker:cannot explain it, but whatever. That's not a complaint, it
Speaker:works to my advantage. I just don't understand it.
Speaker:You know, I would meet with people for a couple of— well, like one time,
Speaker:and then I'd get an email a week or two later, hey, we're working on
Speaker:this thing, do you have any thoughts on it? And then I would end up
Speaker:working on that thing And it happened a couple times and they were relatively small
Speaker:contracts, but that's not a complaint. I'm fine with that. So
Speaker:I found myself accidentally consulting.
Speaker:At the same time, this other company came to me
Speaker:and said they wanted me to do a short-term consulting contract with them, but it
Speaker:was like a full-time engagement. And then because of
Speaker:some internal issues that they had, they were like, you know what, it would be
Speaker:way easier if we bring you in as a W-2. So do you want to
Speaker:just work for us? And I said, sure, because I thought that was what
Speaker:I was supposed to do. I was told by somebody who cared about me a
Speaker:ton that was what I was supposed to do. And they knew that I had
Speaker:other consulting work that I was doing. They were fine with it. There was another
Speaker:fractional thing I was looking at. They were fine with it. I was transparent about
Speaker:everything. All good to go. So I took the job.
Speaker:I was there 3 months before All of
Speaker:the corporate nonsense started sliding
Speaker:downhill, for it became very apparent that
Speaker:the CEO's wife was an emotional
Speaker:terrorist. Girl-on-girl crime was bad there. It was bad. And
Speaker:if you know me, that's— I don't have the stomach for it. I don't. I
Speaker:do not pit women against each other in the workplace. There are only
Speaker:so many of us, and If we can't enjoy working
Speaker:together, I don't wanna work with you at all. There was a lot of
Speaker:typical VC-driven healthcare
Speaker:bullshit, and I hated it. I
Speaker:hated it. I had told them when I took the job that
Speaker:I'm not big on travel. Now, mind you, this was the first year of
Speaker:COVID This was early COVID. They basically
Speaker:had open offices at that point. And they wanted people to be there in person
Speaker:all the time, but they were across the country from me. And so I did
Speaker:travel there one time and it was great, but I had 3 days
Speaker:there where I got no work done because all I was doing
Speaker:was running around and schmoozing with people, which I hated. I just
Speaker:wanted to do the work. That's what I was there to do was work. And
Speaker:all I could do was go to this meeting, meet with this person,
Speaker:go to dinner, whatever. So like literally it costs them money to fly
Speaker:me out there. It costs them money for me to be there. It costs them
Speaker:money because they lost almost a week of productivity from me in the
Speaker:process. And they were like, okay, well, can you be back in 2
Speaker:weeks? And I'm like, if you need somebody here that often, why don't you hire
Speaker:somebody who's here? So between trip number 1
Speaker:and trip number 2, there was a variant of COVID that got really bad.
Speaker:Everybody was sick again. We had a very short break. Where everybody was
Speaker:vaccinated and things seemed to be tamping down. And then we went into whatever this
Speaker:first wave of a new variant was that got everybody sick again.
Speaker:And at the time I was basically the primary caretaker for my mom and
Speaker:we couldn't bring in an outside caretaker because of COVID And so I
Speaker:said, I just can't keep getting on a plane. I said, I can't get this
Speaker:variant cuz I can't give it to my mom. And
Speaker:my boss there said, It's not if you get
Speaker:it, it's when. So I just wouldn't worry about it. And
Speaker:I was like, well, we're done here. Thank you for the
Speaker:opportunity, but you just encouraged me to try to kill my
Speaker:mother. And if I do that, it's going to be a way more interesting way
Speaker:than giving her a strain of COVID I've got bigger plans than
Speaker:that, but you're certainly not going to tell
Speaker:me To not worry about a global pandemic that
Speaker:has killed many people, many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker:when I'm the primary caretaker for somebody who, by the way, just had an
Speaker:organ transplant. So actually, now that I think about it, they fired
Speaker:me. They fired me because I wouldn't travel. I have a memory that I quit,
Speaker:but they fired me. And listen, firing gets a bad rap,
Speaker:right? Getting fired gets a bad rap because it's embarrassing.
Speaker:Please. Let someone pay you to go away. There is
Speaker:no greater joy in life than getting
Speaker:paid to go away. So they paid me to go
Speaker:away. I went away, but I was like, this is
Speaker:bullshit. This is bullshit. Your corporate
Speaker:perspective was at a healthcare company, mind
Speaker:you, a healthcare company. The pandemic's not that big a deal.
Speaker:You being here in person, even though you're less productive, is more important
Speaker:to us than the public health risk. And I was like,
Speaker:I'm done with that attitude. I can't, I'm done. I'm spent. The
Speaker:next day, literally the next day, and I had
Speaker:zero information about either of these things before it happened. The
Speaker:next day, I got 2 offers to consult
Speaker:at 2 different companies for quote unquote Full-time engagements— that
Speaker:doesn't necessarily mean you're working full-time— and replaced all of that income and
Speaker:some, and have consistently been getting work like that for
Speaker:5 years, except a brief period where I wasn't accepting new work.
Speaker:I make a shit ton more money than the person who told me not to
Speaker:start my own business. Like, a shit ton. And I don't say that to brag.
Speaker:I say that because Somebody else's faith in you
Speaker:should not determine whether you bet on yourself or not. I don't
Speaker:think he was trying to be mean at all. I don't think he was trying
Speaker:to be harsh. I don't think any of those things. I think they
Speaker:thought they were protecting me, that they were keeping me safe,
Speaker:that they were doing what was right for me. But guess what
Speaker:they don't understand? They don't understand my industry.
Speaker:They don't understand startups. They don't understand fractional
Speaker:work. I didn't even understand fractional work at the time. Had I
Speaker:listened— and I did try to listen, I did try
Speaker:to listen— and it was exactly what I said it would
Speaker:be. It was exactly what I was trying to get away from. But when I
Speaker:bet on myself— I don't even know if I bet on myself as much as
Speaker:I let the universe point me in the way of whatever the thing was. When
Speaker:I did what felt right to me. I want to say it that
Speaker:way because I don't know that I ever bet on myself, because at no point
Speaker:was I like, I'm gonna find more work, contracts are just
Speaker:gonna come to me. That has never been my attitude. I'm
Speaker:always maybe a little bit too much in scarcity
Speaker:mindset. I'm worried that the next thing is not going to come, even though it
Speaker:has consistently come. So I want to be clear that I don't wake up in
Speaker:the morning and I have an abundance of work, and I am
Speaker:always going to be able to feed my family. That's not how I'm wired. You
Speaker:could pay me to not worry, and I would still worry. That's just the
Speaker:way I'm wired. But somebody else's
Speaker:doubt in what you believe to be true
Speaker:should not be the determining factor in whether you do that thing or not.
Speaker:They could have good intentions, they could have bad intentions, They could be on your
Speaker:side, they could be your biggest foil, who knows?
Speaker:But lots of people are going to tell you you can't, and if
Speaker:you think you can, odds are you probably can. And also,
Speaker:you might fuck up, and you might fail. Those 2 things can exist
Speaker:at the same time. They can! If your brain and your body are
Speaker:telling you that you need something else, and you are waiting for a
Speaker:sign from someone else that it's okay to do it,
Speaker:stop. What do you need? What do you need to set up
Speaker:to get to that place? What do you need in your corner
Speaker:before you feel comfortable doing that thing? You don't need
Speaker:somebody else's permission. Like, talk to your partner first if you have a partner.
Speaker:Don't do what I did and quit your job without talking to your partner first.
Speaker:That can go over poorly. I'm very fortunate. Let me put it this way. If
Speaker:my husband had quit his job without telling me, I
Speaker:would have lost my shit, and you might have found
Speaker:him in a shallow grave. He wins. He wins
Speaker:that part of our relationship by leaps and bounds
Speaker:because I went up to him and said, I might have just quit my job.
Speaker:And a day or so before, he would have been like, can you please
Speaker:not rage quit your job? We need an income. We need
Speaker:your income. And I was like, I'm not gonna rage quit my job.
Speaker:And then I rage quit my job expecting that he was gonna be
Speaker:really unhappy with me. And I swear to
Speaker:God, he looked at me and said, if they
Speaker:don't see how great you are, we don't need them.
Speaker:And acted like we had not had a conversation the day before
Speaker:where he was like, Can you not quit your job? He wins because
Speaker:I would not have been so gracious as I would have been like, what
Speaker:are you doing? This is the end of the world. And he was like,
Speaker:you'll figure it the fuck out because you always do. Life is different if you
Speaker:have a biggest fan in your corner. I'm just saying. But anyway, even
Speaker:people who love you are going to give you bad advice
Speaker:sometimes, and that's reality. Even people
Speaker:who love you Even people who know their area of business
Speaker:really well might not know your area of business.
Speaker:Be careful where you get your advice from. Be careful when you ignore your gut
Speaker:to listen to somebody else, even if they mean well. Take in
Speaker:opinions, let them influence your perception,
Speaker:but don't let them make the decision for you. It's time to go out on
Speaker:your own. Let's do it. We can do anything
Speaker:scared, we should not have to do anything unsafe.
Speaker:If you're scared, let's go. If you're unsafe, that's a different
Speaker:story. Let's figure out how to get you safe, and then we can do the
Speaker:scared thing. You are worth betting on. And that does not mean
Speaker:that you should quit your job without a plan, that you should throw caution
Speaker:to the wind, that you should make a bad decision. No, we do certainly are
Speaker:not in an economy where we could easily recover from that. But I'm not
Speaker:saying that jobs are bad. I'm not saying that having a job is bad. I'm
Speaker:not saying that you should start your business over having a job. I'm not saying
Speaker:any of that. I am saying that you are worth betting on,
Speaker:and I would bet on you, and so you should bet on you too. Also
Speaker:buy my consulting program. Let's be honest, that's what I'm really
Speaker:saying. And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's
Speaker:Small Talk. So we have a Small Talk here from Tamara
Speaker:in Louisiana, she asks, when my son was diagnosed
Speaker:autistic at age 5, my mother-in-law told me I was letting doctors
Speaker:label him. My father said I was looking for
Speaker:excuses. My husband believed the diagnosis immediately and
Speaker:has been his biggest champion ever since. I don't know how to sit
Speaker:at a family dinner with people who love my kid and still somehow refuse
Speaker:to see him. How do you love someone who won't do the work of
Speaker:understanding the person you love most? Don't sit at the table with
Speaker:them. Don't. Just don't. I get it that you love these people, but they
Speaker:are not loving you back in the way that you need to be loved. So
Speaker:don't sit at the table with them. And if they want you to come back
Speaker:to the table, they have to start to understand your perspective and
Speaker:approach things differently. They can't not acknowledge a huge part
Speaker:of your child's existence and the way that he needs to be communicated with and
Speaker:the way that he needs to be supported. And think that you're gonna continue
Speaker:to have the same relationship with them. It would be like somebody else saying,
Speaker:hey, I understand that you're deathly allergic to strawberries and you'll die
Speaker:if you have strawberries, but here's this strawberry pie, and if you actually appreciate me
Speaker:as a friend, you'll actually eat it. And it's like, no, that— you are directly
Speaker:ignoring a very important part of somebody's identity that actually, like,
Speaker:defines how they interact with other people, how they can interact with the world. What
Speaker:services are acknowledged and available to him? No, don't
Speaker:sit at the table with them. You don't have to go break bread with people
Speaker:who deny some of the most important parts of your existence or your kids' existence.
Speaker:No, I know you love them, and that is great, and you are still
Speaker:allowed to love them. There's a boundary there that I think you probably need to
Speaker:set. And maybe I'm just so burnt out on
Speaker:family nonsense that I'm willing to drop the hatchet. And like, maybe there's
Speaker:a conversation first. Maybe you don't have to just like stop going to dinner with
Speaker:them, but say, hey, If we're going to be part of your life, then
Speaker:you are going to acknowledge these things and you are going to get on board
Speaker:with these things. And if that's not possible, then we need to take a break.
Speaker:But I can't imagine having somebody in my life who
Speaker:was so dismissive of something that is a
Speaker:really important thing about somebody who is so important to you.
Speaker:But I say this about maintaining relationships like this a
Speaker:lot because I went through Not something similar, but there was a hard boundary I
Speaker:had to put up with a family member. And it— first I felt bad
Speaker:that I had to do it, and then I felt bad that I didn't feel
Speaker:bad, which is a whole
Speaker:nother side of guilt that we throw on ourselves, which is a little bit
Speaker:bullshit. And from the feeling bad
Speaker:about not feeling bad part, I realized that as far as
Speaker:the people who are allowed in my daily existence are concerned, I have
Speaker:an infinite amount of love, but a finite amount of
Speaker:space. The love is awarded whether
Speaker:you want it or not. It's yours. Once I give it to you, I will
Speaker:not take it back. The space is awarded on a merit system and you
Speaker:gotta earn it. That doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean that I
Speaker:don't want the best for you. It doesn't mean that I won't be there if
Speaker:there's something catastrophic that you need help with. But for
Speaker:day-to-day stuff, This is not good for me. This is not okay.
Speaker:I need to set this boundary and it's, it's gotta hold. And so
Speaker:I'm looking at your merit system right now and it doesn't look like they're earning
Speaker:their way in. And it sounds to me like they need to do something different.
Speaker:Also, good for your husband. Good for your freaking husband. Thanks
Speaker:for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you, mean it.
Speaker:That was way longer than I meant for it to be. I know that's terribly
Speaker:shocking. I know you're so shocked, Neil.
