I'll Do It My Way
By Brooke Nolly
"I was shaking as I poured the water into his glass..."
It was September 2017, I was 25, sitting in a board meeting at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf ‘taking minutes’ in true corporate fashion, as the female admin/everything person and ‘early days’ employee at Fintech giant, Revolut. Reuters recently released an article sharing Revolut’s astounding 45 billion dollar valuation, joining Europes biggest banks. Oh, what could have been with my employee stock options...
I’ll never forget that investor meeting. It was a group of middle aged white men from Goldman Sachs, Balderton Capital and Index Ventures to name a few, at each others throats, one upping, yelling, dismissing, patronising, degrading and humiliating… the founder. It was like a mental and verbal version of gladiator.
The founder took it all, unwavering. It was wild to witness.
One of the investors requested I get him some water and in that moment, I felt this insane fury wash over me. I was shaking as I poured the water into his glass. It was like I was in an episode of Mad Men, where my utility was to fetch water, take minutes and be quiet.
"Everything I’d ever known myself to be, was completely and utterly squandered, suffocated and murdered in that role"
Ironically, that is the role I was hired for so I could hardly complain but… I knew from that moment on, I would never be belittled, sent to fetch water or be subservient to an arrogant misogynist man ever again.
I had to become my own boss.
I had to reclaim some sense of power over my life.
I had to leave.
How I would do it was irrelevant at that point, I had reached the tipping point, my "I am done" moment.
"The hangxiety was next level"
While working at Revolut, I’d spend my mornings at Third Space Gym, trying to swim or sweat away my anxiety. My days were spent working as fast and as hard as I could to keep up with the “get SH** done” mantra that was central to the workplace culture that apparently lives on seven years later and I’d spend my evenings drinking, networking, wining-and-dining and secretly dreading the shi* show I was set to step into the next morning.
Looking back, it was complete and utter chaos. It taught me about who I am, who I am not, what I can tolerate, what I will not tolerate and everything in between. I contributed to this chaos by staying busy and avoiding accountability because I felt so much shame. It was the catalyst to giving up alcohol and starting my business.
"Complete freeze mode state"
I quit Revolut (before I could get fired) as I was in a traumatised-complete freeze mode state (I did a podcast episode on it) and nothing much was getting done towards the end. It took me nine months to recover from that environment and it was a catalyst to my own healing that I’d been distracting myself from for quite some time.
It’s been seven years since I left Revolut and nearly seven years of operating my business. I’ve recently realised I really did have to go to the depths of what I “couldn’t stand” in order to move toward what was actually meant for me.
I love the quote “what is meant for me won’t miss me” - if I look at these experiences through this lens, it makes it more tolerable.
"I can leave"
My key learnings from 7 years post corporate have been to listen to my gut, fine tune my intuition, and know that I can leave an environment or human anytime, especially if it robs me of my life force and has me living out of integrity with my values. No amount of money, status or CV tenure is worth my dignity or self worth.
I’m 100% responsible for my life and I actually get to choose differently, whenever I want. I never knew that was even a thing…
Perfectionist avoidance is what I tend to lean toward when the future seems ambiguous and I often wait, wait and wait a little more when really, what is required of me is to go, go, go and do it my way. Take that messy action, take that leap of faith, because the net will appear - but only after I’ve leapt.
When I leap, I live life on my terms, with my set of standards, boundaries and preferences. For me that meant slowing down, tuning in and saying no to everything that didn’t align with who I wanted to be.
"Leaving was my personal reclamation moment"
If I take one micro messy action at a time, cry along the way, scream at the steering wheel on the open road, seek support and say no to what I don’t want – I am limitless. I say this with conviction because it’s been a repetitive lived experience, the saying “new level same devil” couldn’t be more accurate. While I was still at Revolut, I didn’t know what my dreams were and the only dream I had was to not work there. I had to trust that and start there. Looking back I realise I had no clue and very little self trust but by quitting Revolut that day, it freed me up to create a life and business that felt like mine.
I’ll do it my way and continue to do it my way. I hope you’ll do it your way. Rooting for you, from one former chaotic-corporate drop out to another x
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