i think it's brave: to post your own words online for everyone else to read.
the pilot
Some Background On How I Got Here
February 2020, I took a gigantic leap of faith and left my seat on the trading floor of a major investment bank to join an alternative data company I had never heard of. I honestly turned down the offer at first, but the CRO got on the phone and convinced me, like the excellent salesman he is. He gave me confidence in things materializing, the vision for the company and everything I would learn once I got there. I was excited to start, I believed in the company, and I was absolutely 1000% drinking the Kool-Aid. I worked in the office for 25 days before COVID sent me packing back to my parent's house like the rest of the non-essential 20-somethings in New York City. I kept working hard, kept wearing my mask, kept feeling blissfully insulated because of my sparkly new job.
*Spoiler Alert* 4 months into the pandemic and my position has been eliminated.
I learned a lot in the past 5 months; it's almost like the universe was training me not to sell a data-driven insights tool, but to sell myself. Which I will now be doing, shamelessly, until I find a new job. I went through 30 days of Sales University, took endless notes and listened intently to learn everything I could about being a successful saleswoman. How to be confident, advocate for myself, and how to stand my ground when I know the value in what I’m selling. So here I am, sitting at the keyboard, finally seeing the value in myself and going for it.
Enter: i think it's brave:
Throughout quarantine, my mind has felt at peace when writing the Isolation Journals (https://www.suleikajaouad.com/the-isolation-journals). Early on, I posted one of my reflections on my Instagram account, probably because my lack of social interaction had caused me to forget how public embarrassment works. While some people may have been making fun of me from afar, I luckily had no idea, and those people are probably not subscribing to receive my writing in their personal inboxes regardless. But if they are…
Anyways, I only received messages thanking me for my words, telling me that they had enjoyed seeing my thoughts articulated during such an *~*unprecedented time*~*. And those messages made me post again. And then again. I realized that by posting my journals, I was hanging an OPEN sign on my door. I was having brief but meaningful conversations with people depending on the day, always surprised by who my words resonated with and why. So, back in April I created this newsletter because I was feeling confident and wanted to give my words a little more space to breathe. Of course, I did not write any newsletters, as it is now July and this is the first installment. But, now that my job has gone from non-essential to non-existent, there is literally no excuse not to start again.
So where do we go from here?
Over quarantine, an old friend introduced me to my new idol, Glennon Doyle, who used to wake up every morning and write because despite everything going on in her life, that is what her heart was telling her to do. It got her through a very hard time, and she built a community around her words. Her book Untamed partly inspired me to do this, because in the past 3 days when I have had no work to do, my immediate reaction was to write. And as my first official recommendation, I suggest you read her book, twice.
What, you may ask, will I be writing about? Well, I am open to suggestions and we will watch it unfold together. All I know for sure is that each newsletter, I'm going to celebrate something brave. Because despite everything going on in our lives, we can always be brave; and I have found that in doing just that, a lot of good things come my way. My goal eventually is to bring conversations with friends, family, and people I look up to, into this space and write about their experiences with making brave decisions and being unapologetically themselves.
In the pilot episode of this new series, if you will, I count at least 4 brave things: leaving my job in February, announcing to the world that I am currently unemployed after making that decision, posting my own writing on Instagram, and starting this very newsletter. All of those things seem super messy, and in reality they are. But they were choices that made me feel alive, and that is what I am deciding to focus on.
If you are reading this, then you made it this far, and I thank you. I’ll leave you with someone else’s words as a reprieve:
until next time!
be brave, love meigs