the only option
"Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn." Burt Bacharach
A topic I don’t see discussed, that I think should be, is the art of knowing when to leave. Is it an art? Is it a feeling? Is it an innate guide? What would you call it?
Do you even know exactly what I am talking about?
Let me explain. In a 10 month time period between September of 2023 and June of 2024, I made two massive, life altering decisions.
The first one was to leave my corporate job, having absolutely no idea what was next.
The second was to sell my house, most of my stuff, pack up and head out to Europe, with a loose itinerary and no long term plans.
The corporate job decision was one I didn’t ever consider, until it was the only option that made sense. I worked my ass off to get that job. I grew exponentially as a leader, a woman and a teammate in that role.
I am incredibly proud of what I accomplished there; I was hired to run a startup within a tech company, which I had no prior experience doing. Armed with a sense of delusion, a gut feeling that I was meant to work there, and always having been a quick study, I convinced them to hire me.
Over the course of almost 4 years, I changed every single aspect of how the business was run, how we hired, trained, organized the team, expectations both internal and external, how we ran sales & marketing, and how we interacted with our customers.
We were set up for scalability and success. Unfortunately, the real estate market had other plans, and our growth was stagnant. I had made a deal with one of the largest brokerages in the nation to be their preferred service provider, so we were consistent, yet had minimal growth.
The business had come to run itself and I found myself with time on my hands.
Working for a small company full of great leaders is the ultimate blessing. But when your role has become somewhat irrelevant, it can be quite the conundrum, as there may not be any other leadership roles to step into.
I knew I had two options. Stick around, phone it in, and likely, eventually, get laid off. Or, I could go out on my own terms, on a high, proud of all I had accomplished, with my positivity and pride intact. I chose the latter.
When I made the decision to sell my house, again, it was a call I made without ever thinking about it, until it was the only option that made sense.
At the beginning of 2024, instead of searching for another job, as layoffs were happening all around me, I opted to work for myself. In retrospect, I had no idea what I was doing, and quite frankly, I still don’t, I’m just doing it more confidently!
I don’t necessarily believe in coincidence or serendipity, I think that things happen as they’re meant to when living in alignment with who we are and putting the energy we wish to receive out into the world.
More simply, when we do good, and put out good, more good comes our way.
A coffee catch up turned into an offer to consult with a startup and an invitation to join them in a highly competitive accelerator program. Once again, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and it turned out to be one of the greatest professional experiences of my life to date. Techstars is one of the most sought after startup accelerator programs in the world and being invited to join a mere 4 days before it started is something I will never take for granted. I met some of the most wonderful people, got a crash MBA in all things startup and my world is forever changed.
The program was 3 months long, and during that time a few opportunities for fractional work were on the horizon. Until they weren’t. As a believer in the timing of life, I stopped and thought, ok what path is this opening up for me?
I have always been very self aware. Self awareness is something I have worked really hard on, and certainly gotten better at over the recent past, but I have always been very in tune with myself and my emotions.
Life had started to feel like groundhogs day and I was feeling the rare, yet familiar, feeling of depression sinking in.
Please know that using the word depression is not something I take lightly. In fact, I fear that some words to describe mental health are thrown around much too flippantly in current times and it concerns me. I would never want to discount an actual mental health issue that someone is fighting over just being a little bummed out or frustrated.
That said, having been actually depressed two times in my adult life, it deeply concerned me that I was having those feelings.
I’d been considering selling my house for some time. I’ve known for a long while that Sacramento is not my forever home, but aside from a seaside flat in my favorite Greek city, I don’t know where is! Regardless, I did some research and called a realtor who had tons of recent sales both in and around my area. She came over, checked out the house, talked to me about the market, sales price, and what my timing was. I told her I’d get back to her.
In true Nikki fashion, after thinking about it for a few days and doing some travel research, I called her on a Thursday morning and said, “If I want to leave the country on August 1st, when do we need to put the house on the market?” She said “Next Wednesday”. So, we did.
And we got a full price offer 4 days later. Negotiated on the timeline, and opened escrow. Boom.
But once again, I didn’t know that was the decision until it was the only option that made sense.
Here’s something I learned about depression. Your brain chemistry takes a bit to catch up once a decision has been made. It took a few days after the house hit the market and shit got real for me to start feeling like myself again. I woke up one day and felt lighter. And the feeling hasn’t left. I am grateful.
Knowing when to leave. There’s knowing. Recognizing. Acting. It’s that last one that can get you. You have to have the courage, the confidence, the belief that there is something bigger, better, stronger, on the other side.
I bet on me. I am so happy I did.
Podcast Update:
Officially wrapped up month two of putting out 6 episodes!
I’m learning weekly about social media trends and ways to grow. Trying to get better at SEO (this is so elusive and honestly, frustrating) by testing out titles, keywords and thumbnails.
Asking for help. A classic Jim Corbett (my dad) line, “you don’t ask, you don’t get”!
If you use Apple Podcasts, could I ask you to click here and follow my show? And one step further, if you have listened, would you rate & review? It truly does wonders for the algorithm and how Apple suggests shows to others.
If you have a YouTube account, could I ask you to click here and subscribe to my channel? At time of posting this, I have 99 subscribers. I am thankful for every.single.one of them. Would you be one, too?
If you’re reading this, and you’re a podcaster, let’s chat! I’d love to learn from you and help you in any way I can.
Personal Update:
My birthday was on Sunday, and as mentioned last week, I was in Arizona with my mom and dad. The weather was glorious. I got a great workout, took advantage of the birthday coffee from Starbucks, relaxed in the sun for a couple hours and then we went to dinner.
My mom chose Maple & Ash, and oh.my.god. It was incredible. As the kids say these days, “no notes”. Firstly, they treated us like gold. Personalized menu, champagne, in lieu of a bread basket, there were chips with a light creamy dip with some caviar on it. We were off to a great start. Shrimp cocktail, steak tartare, truffle pasta, steak, fish, butter cake, each dish as fabulous as the last. It was truly impeccable. We had so much fun!
I know some of you were wondering about the email (ok 2 of you, but still, I promised an update so here goes)!
Completely had forgotten what I’d written, but overall I wasn’t too surprised. I recapped the year prior, noted areas that I was proud of, gave myself a great pep talk for accomplishing goals over the year and mused about where I’d be by the time I read the email.
It was sweet, I am glad I did it, and am about to type up an email to myself to schedule send for next year. Cool gift.
I will say the one part that made me cry was the line saying to hug and kiss Norm a lot and to remember that he loves me and just walks slow. Even retyping that I choke up.
For those who are getting to know me through this newsletter, Norm is my 15.5 year old, 15 pound dog. He is the love of my life, the best money I have ever spent and I know to my bones that he was meant to be mine. He is doing great, so no worries, but he does move a bit slower and sleep a bit more, and we are all convinced he has very selective hearing.
As always, thank you for reading. I have committed to at least one newsletter a week through the end of 2025. I am excited to see where it leads me and for you to be a part of this journey.
Until next week ❤️
