I want to tell you about a specific day that changed how I think about everything. My career, my money, my future. Not in a vague "this was a turning point" kind of way. In a I-sat-in-my-car-afterwards-and-couldn't-move kind of way.
A few years into my finance career, I joined a startup. And I don't mean I joined it the way you join a company, show up, do your job, go home. I mean, I gave it everything. First in, last out, weekends without being asked. I genuinely believed in what we were building, and I worked like it.
But slowly, I started seeing things I couldn't unsee. The product wasn't landing. The founder had quietly started to check out, not dramatically, just gradually, the way people do when they already know something is over but haven't said it out loud yet.
So I started looking for another job, found something good, and handed my notice in. I felt terrible about it. That probably tells you everything about how much I'd invested in that place.
And that's when the founder pulled me aside and told me I was making a mistake, that they'd just won a big contract. That the best was coming and I'd be walking away right before it happened. He was convincing. He looked me in the eye. And for a moment, I nearly believed him.
But I'd seen too much. So I decided to leave anyway.
Two days later, he called the entire company into the boardroom.
THE ONE INSIGHT
More than thirty people in that room. People who'd given their nights and weekends to that company. People who'd turned down other offers because they'd been told it was worth staying. People with mortgages, kids at home, and rent due at the end of the month.
He stood at the front and told them the company was going into liquidation. Effective immediately. Go home.
What I can't get out of my head, even now, isn't what he said. It's watching it land. The exact second each person understood what had just happened to their life. Some went completely still. Some looked at each other like they were checking they'd heard right. Some just stared at the table doing the maths in real time, how long have I got, what do I tell them at home, where do I even start?
And the founder stood there with the coldest face I have ever seen. Not angry, not sad, not guilty. Just done. Like this was an administrative task he needed to close before moving on to whatever came next for him.
I sat in my car outside my house that afternoon and didn't move for a long time. Not because I was in trouble, I'd already made my decision, and I was going to be fine. But because I'd just watched what actually happens when you hand your future to someone else and they decide, on one ordinary Wednesday, that their future matters more than yours.
And here's the thing I've never been able to shake: he wasn't even a bad person. He just did what people do when the pressure gets high enough. He put himself first. Every single person in that room would have done the same. So would I. So would you. When it's your family or theirs, you choose yours. Every time.
The problem wasn't the founder. The problem was that thirty people had built their entire financial security on the assumption that he wouldn't.
I stayed in corporate for years after that day. I needed the income, my family needed the stability, and I made that trade deliberately. But something shifted in me. Slowly and quietly, I started building something on the side that belonged entirely to me. Learning things I'd keep regardless of whoever was signing my paycheck. Making myself, over time, harder to destroy with one Wednesday morning announcement.
Because here's what nobody says when they're selling you the dream of leaving your job: most of the people in that boardroom were good at what they did. Some were exceptional. It didn't matter. Their results didn't protect them. Their loyalty didn't protect them. The only thing that would have protected them was something that was entirely theirs, something that didn't depend on that man staying interested.
THE ACTION STEP
I'm not asking you to hand your notice in. I'm asking you to be honest with yourself about something most people never actually sit down and look at.
1. If your company called a meeting tomorrow and let you go, how long could you actually last? Not a rough guess, actually work it out. Your savings, your outgoings, how many months before it gets serious? Most people have never calculated this number and it is one of the most important numbers in your life.
2. Pick one thing this week that belongs entirely to you. A skill, a contact, something you're building. Something that goes with you no matter what happens to whoever is currently signing your paycheck. It doesn't have to be a business. It just has to be yours.
3. Stop waiting for your employer to make your future secure. Not because they're bad people. But because that was never their job. It was always yours.
I think about those thirty people more than I think about most things from that period of my life. Not with sadness anymore. More as a reminder of why I'm doing what I'm doing now, the three businesses, the 11 pm laptop, the scared and tired, and building anyway.
Because this, as hard as it is on the worst days, is the alternative to sitting in that room.
It's harder. But it's entirely mine. And nobody can walk in one Wednesday morning and take it away.
My latest project…
A few weeks ago, I shared a short book about my weight loss and health journey, and the identity shift that made it possible.
Not the routines or the rules, but the internal changes that had to happen for me to stop cycling and start moving forward. I’m mentioning it here for anyone new, or anyone who wants to understand the deeper work behind sustainable change.
You can find it here if you want to read more.
Before You Go
I’ve been writing these pieces in the quiet, between school runs, work, and late-night thinking, but I’ve started sharing more of the journey in real time too. The reflections, the systems, the messier parts of reinvention that never make it into the newsletter.
If you want to follow along, you’ll find me here:
Come say hi. It’s less about followers, more about finding the others who are doing the invisible work too.
If something in this email made you pause, think, or feel seen, send it to a friend who’s been quietly trying to make a change, too.
You never know what might land at the right moment. Link here.
“The company will survive losing you. Make sure you can say the same.”