What I wish I knew before I went solo

A publicist shares how she got from "crisis mode" to "I couldn't be be happier with where I am today."

In the fall of 2019, five months before COVID disrupted every facet of daily life, I was laid off in a corporate restructuring. Needless to say, it stung. But — as so often seems to be the case — it actually proved to be the launch pad to a much more fulfilled (and even better compensated) professional trajectory. (I’ve written about it for stories in Glamour here and TODAY here.)

I love that this is part of my history because it’s incontrovertible evidence — from my own life, so I can’t refute it (even on bad days) — that there’s so much power in the pivot. There’s so much to be gained when circumstances throw us for a loop, even when it’s hard to see the way out. And there’s so, so much that’s good about having your own name on the door.

I wish I’d known that everything was going to be OK — in fact, it was going to be great — when I was in the middle of the painful transition. (If I’d felt this assurance, I would have done it sooner and on my own terms.) But I’m here to remind you that it will be great for you too if you decide to — or find yourself forced to — make a leap.

These types of, er, forced pivots, happened for people all around media as a result of COVID and the otherwise changing landscape. So many people in my sphere went independent after layoffs or other challenging industry circumstances.

Today, I’m talking to one of those people, a publicist with whom I worked closely in her agency days — before a pandemic layoff forced her to take a leap of faith and start her own thing. (Spoiler: It’s highly successful.)

Amid new doom-y headlines and market pressures, I hope you’ll be as inspired by her story as I am.