I started my own business, my own coaching business, because of a puzzle.

A jigsaw puzzle.

In a pandemic.

Literally and figuratively, I slowly put the pieces together, found my voice again and created something from nothing. This is my story of how a puzzle led me to build a business and help others find their voice.

Apocalypse is Coming

In early March 2020, I was working at my dream travel job, and I had been traveling for work and pleasure for nearly two weeks straight. I went from a work trip to family-friendly Mardi Gras in Lake Charles, Louisiana to a spa weekend with girlfriends in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, to a short getaway to Stuart, Florida to visit family.

After these two weeks of travel, my plane landed back home in Philadelphia on March 12, 2020 and when everyone turned their phone’s back on, the world was beginning to shut down, fast. Being away from the internet for even just two hours, we soon realized how much could change and be canceled when we were about to embark into the unknown of a pandemic.

Since I had been traveling for about two weeks, my first stop after landing was the grocery store because I legitimately needed toilet paper and food. It was March with no snow in the forecast but it was as if everyone was expecting a blizzard. I wasn’t yet convinced this was going to be as bad as it became. I joked that I got my toilet paper and was ready for the apocalypse.

Little did I know that an apocalypse was indeed breathing down our necks.

Being single and living in an apartment, I at least had the foresight to know I was going to need to entertain myself and TV and Wi-Fi would only get me so far. I knew I was going to need a puzzle. I always did puzzles when I was a kid and would sit for hours putting the right pieces in place. I picked the hobby up again, during my second career lay off years ago and it helped me to focus my attention on a project rather than stress about trying to find a job. Putting a puzzle together is a way for me to de-stress, solve a problem, and focus my attention on something I can control. I would put music or a podcast on and completely zone out while searching for pieces.

Putting a puzzle together in a pandemic was like wearing a life vest in a sea of uncertainty and anxiety. And when I added wine to the mix, puzzle time advanced to the next level.

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Everyone Has a Story

I have been a writer, editor, journalist and content creator for nearly two decades. I have reported the news. I have told people what is happening in their town. I have reported the bad, the boring and the beneficial. I have told parents where to take their children on vacation. I have reported on what beach tent is best for your baby. I have spawned enough wanderlust for families for decades.

I have told tragic stories. I have told triumphant stories. I have told love stories and political stories. I have informed, educated and inspired. But all of those stories, they were all someone else’s story.

In journalism, the number one rule is to not insert yourself into the story. Using the word “I” is a very big no, no. I’m a good writer and journalist so I followed this rule as expected. That’s the job. You write other people’s stories. But I hadn’t told a story of my own. A story about me in years.

Related: Lessons, Goals, Plans: Turning 40

The End

In March 2020, I was working as a full time travel editor at a family travel website and was providing families with tips and inspiration for how and where to travel with children. I wrote and edited countless travel stories and e-commerce stories (aka best baby beach tents) for nearly five years. We pivoted in the pandemic and attempted to inform parents with things to do in their own homes. Best baby beach tents turned into best virtual museum tours. We tried to keep things afloat. We weren’t tone deaf to the pandemic. We knew travel was not top of mind anymore. But we had hopes that the pivot would only last a few months. We all knew travel would come back, and it would come back with vengeance. If we could just hang on until than.

We were told that millions of dollars were being lost daily, not quarterly, not monthly, millions disappearing daily. I had hoped for a furlough. It’s a huge corporation so I thought they would just keep us waiting in the wings until things calmed down and travel was back. I knew something was going to happen to my job but I really didn’t foresee it being completely ripped away forever.

The news finally came down in May 2020. It brings tears to my eyes now well over a year later remembering the punch to the gut. The image and sound of seeing my friend and manager take a deep breath and hearing her voice shake for just a moment as she composed herself in order to tell us over a Zoom call what was coming from the top. I could see her heart beating out of her chest as the words left her mouth. She didn’t want to share this news. She didn’t want to tell us this story. My chin fell to my in-home desk and we stared at each other through a screen in disbelief. No one cried on the call. We purposely kept the call short so we could sob privately. I closed my laptop computer and tears poured from my eyes.

My dream travel job was over. Forever. The large corporation had made the difficult decision to dissolve my entire division, six travel websites, and more than 900 people globally lost their jobs. I was one of them.

Related: Layoffs Lead to Impact and Income

Puzzle Time 

What’s the next logical thing to do after losing your career in a pandemic? Puzzle time obviously.

By the time I had been laid off, puzzle time was already born. In the back of a closet I found a puzzle that I had never done. It was a scene from Paris. Travel, on brand. A couple was embracing under an umbrella on the streets of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the distance. I started putting the pieces together and documenting my progress on Instagram Stories. I was doubly entertaining myself. I was doing a puzzle but also pretending to be an Influencer and make people laugh as I reported to them the best ways to do a puzzle. Just like I would inform, report and tell other people’s stories in my career, I was doing the same thing about a puzzle.

I informed my Instagram audience on how to best do a puzzle (with a side of wine, of course). I told little stories I made up about the visuals of the puzzle. The actual Eiffel Tour instagram account even shared my Story when I finally got the Paris landmark portion of the puzzle complete and tagged the Eiffel Tour. People responded to my Instagram Stories that they were entertained and encouraged me to keep sharing. They seemed invested in my puzzle progress as mundane as a puzzle is. I was making attempts to bring laughter to my small audience in a time when laughter was needed more than anything.

Looking back now, it was when I pieced the romantic couple in the puzzle together that I now see where I shifted in my storytelling. I would record my Puzzle Time updates several times before posting. I didn’t want to look like a fool. I wanted to be funny, but not offensive. It was a pandemic so showering daily also wasn’t top priority either. So I would record and re-record until it was “good enough” to post. And I continued to tell the story of the puzzle, and not me. But when I got to the couple in the puzzle I told a self-deprecating, personal story of being single, single in a pandemic. It was a very tiny share. I was being humorous but I was sharing about myself. I told a few sentence story that was my story, not someone else’s story.

“Influencer” On the Rise

Once I was laid off, all bets were off. I didn’t feel I had to keep up a professional image. It was a pandemic. Everyone was in survival mode. I could be me, and share whatever I wanted on the internet.

My puzzle was complete but my fans (all 17 of them!) wanted more. So I decided to be an “Influencer” not in a serious way, in a completely ironic, funny way. I bought five new pairs of yoga pants (what else was I going to wear for the next year?) and became a “fashion influencer” for the day where I discussed the pros and cons of the nearly-identical yoga pants. I bought spray on hair dye for my dark roots and became a “beauty influencer” for a day. I dabbled in travel and news. I gave a drive-by tour of some Philadelphia landmarks and drove through airport arrivals and departures to witness and share the emptiness. There was Cooking with Courtney, where I covered all the pandemic favorites like banana bread and I baked an apple pie from scratch (it was a success), and shortbread cookies (horrible disaster).

My Instagram audience began to increase, and the responses and encouragement to continue posting also increased. Soon, I focused my attention back on my travel blog that I had started several years early. I had started the blog literally in case I was ever laid off. My idea was to use my travel blog as a creative outlet and write the things I wasn’t able to write at my full time job. I had hopes that it would generate some revenue and if I was ever laid off again, I could fall back on the blog. So I launched it and then ignored it for several years. It generated minuscule amounts of revenue so there was no falling back on the blog’s revenue once I was laid off.

Related: Go Live Your Story Outside Your Comfort Zone

But to fill my time and feel productive, I started to put more effort into the blog. I had plenty of time to write and write things that I wanted to write. But there was still that hurdle of writing about myself and going against everything I was ever taught. Sharing more and more about me on Instagram, gave me that push though to share more about me.

A Course Of Course

It didn’t take me long to know that I wanted to make money online. I wanted to have my own business, something I had wanted since I was a child, but I had no idea what that would look like as a writer. How does a writer have her own business exactly? Taking personal development classes and course became my new hobby. I wanted one of these instructors to tell me what I was supposed to do. I gained tidbits of knowledge from each class but none of them gave me what I wanted. The courses were free or low cost and I was getting what I was paying for, small tidbits of knowledge. I took more classes than I can count, but these four standout most in getting me to where I am now.

Course One: It was a bundle of a wide variety of recorded classes, PDF worksheets and social media tips from several social media influencers. I barely looked at a third of what I purchased. It was a waste of $57. But one mini-course said I should have a logo. I could create my own simple logo for free the instructor said. I tried that and knew the outcome wasn’t going to be ideal. So instead, I hired a professional. The graphic designer I hired (who I dubbed logo girl) was just starting to grow her own business, and she did a fantastic job creating my logo and branding. She also got my wheels spinning as to what my business was. That was the first question she asked in trying to help me with my branding. What’s your business? I shrugged and said it was a travel blog. Clearly, she does great work if she could create a logo from a shrug.

Course Two: It was a 7-day live masterclass on how to build a business online. I watched every long, drawn out 2.5 hour live session, and I could have filled five pillows with the amount of fluff that was provided. While this course was mostly a waste of a week’s worth of time, the instructor did provide the first piece of much needed business advice I needed. My “business” was going to be my blog. That was the business. I had no product or service to sell, just my words on the blog. But the instructor informed us that, “a blog is not a business.” Now, he provided this tidbit on day six or seven of the class. It would have been nice if he mentioned it on day one. As annoyed as I was about this news that a blog is not a business. I knew he was right, which is what made me more annoyed. What was my business?

Related: A Blog is Not A Business: Learning the Hard Truth

Course Three: I invested more than I had on any other course because this instructor, Suzy Holman, had the reputation of helping women find their why and find their business. The month-long course had some hiccups, but it was the best I had taken so far! It was a beta, remote version of Suzy’s in-person business retreats that she was trying to turn virtual and they had some growing pains along the way. It was a month long (once a week) and cost more than I had paid on any of the courses or classes prior, but I was starting to realize that when you really invest in a course, it pays off. I also learned that when you invest in the beta version, you get a bit of discount!

Suzy and the 50 other women in the group all helped me to find my business and finally figure out what my business was. I mentioned to the group that I had a travel blog and was a writer, and soon several of the women were coming to me with questions about writing, websites, newsletters and content. And I had the answers to their questions. They helped me to see my expertise. They helped me to see that no, everyone didn’t know what I knew in the world of content and writing, and I could help them. I could help these women grow their own businesses. I could help them write. I could help them create content. I could help them tell their story.

Course Four: I was finally on the right path after Virtual Suzy School. But execution was proving harder than I thought. Once the month-long class was over, that inspiration and support from Suzy and the fellow women in the program slowly simmered. I built some excellent relationships with the women in that group and still look to them for support, and I love watching all of them grow in their businesses. But most of them were all in the beginning stages of building a business too. I needed more personalized support on how to coach women in business. Tara Kirby and her Instagram title of being a Coach for Coaches entered into my life. I found Tara when she attended one of Suzy’s in-person retreats and I immediately starting following along on her journey, and learned everything I could about her.

Tara transforms women into realizing they can live their dream life, whatever that dream looks like to them. I liked that Tara seemed genuine and authentic. She wasn’t trying too hard on social media. She was real and I’m real so I knew we were a fit. However, the investment that I needed to make in order to work with Tara and learn how to coach and become a certified life and business coach in the end, was more than I had ever considered investing in myself before. Reminder, I was still unemployed and paying for things wasn’t easy. But I knew this was what I needed. This investment, while a risk, would bring me the transformation I needed and allow me to become a business owner. So I added to my already growing credit card debt and jumped in head first.

A Coach is Born

After completing Tara’s 12-week Dream Method program, I can now say I am a certified life and business coach with a focus on content. All of the women in this coaching community helped me to see what I was capable of accomplishing. They helped me to transform and see that yes, I’ve had a dream of owning my own business and now is the time to go after that dream. I have the skills, expertise, knowledge and now the certification and confidence to say, I’m building my own business while helping other women do the same. 

Everything led me to this. My career, my lay offs, my lessons learned, my successes, a pandemic — and a puzzle — all led me to the business of coaching.

I am a certified life and business coach and I help women get confident in their business and their content. I help female business owners find their voice, humanize their business and create content that converts. Whether it’s a blog, website, newsletter, podcast or social media, I help women to transform their preconceived notions that content creation takes too much time or they can’t write well or that they don’t have a story to tell. I coach them in how to create new content in less time and repurpose existing content so it works harder for them, so they don’t have to. I help women find themselves again and shout from the rooftops who they are and what their business is.

It took me years (and a pandemic) to put the puzzle pieces together that I was always meant to own a small business. Now to coach women and help guide them in finding their purpose as well, makes the long journey to my discovery even more worthwhile.

I put the puzzle together.

Piece by piece I was transformed into the business owner, coach and woman I was always meant to be.

I found my business. I found my story. I found me.

Related: Invest In You

 

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