How do we fill close the gap between multi generational workforce’s? So I was about a year and a half in to that. And then a second moment happened. It was right around the time where my company was reorganizing and re-stacking the company. And I’ve been with the company for at the time, eight years. And I always landed somewhere whether it was with a different team, or it was on in a different role. If somebody how I managed to land somewhere. So, this time, it was nothing different.

But what happened was, as I was looking for another role, my vice president at the time knew that I was looking to join another team. And so we had been working with HR to try to figure out how to process the people work great. And I remember my eight year anniversary, I happened to be in vacation out with my family. It was a beautiful, gorgeous, Thursday. And he texted me, and he said Elizabeth, let’s chat.

So I was out with my family. And so I needed some privacy. So I went to the car to call him back. And in that moment of talking to him, he said, Elizabeth, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to let you go. And I just remember saying to him, you know that I’m going to be joining this other team, Why? What happened to that role is no longer available? And he said to me, I don’t know, you’re gonna have to figure that out. And I just remember thinking, Wait a minute, isn’t this the same company that I’m working for?

And said, what do you mean, I have to figure it out? And you’re laying me off. So how’s that? How does it even work? And I just remember in that moment, feeling like a complete failure, just completely devastated. I really felt in that moment, completely stripped of my dignity. I mean, I was so ashamed. I sat in the car after I hung up with them, and I literally started crying.

I thought, How can I face my family? How can I face them right? And I just cried. I cried in the car. And then I said, Elizabeth, get your group together. And call this VP team that you’re supposed to be joining and figure out what’s going on. So I called her. And I said, I told her what happened. And she’s like, this doesn’t make any sense.

Elizabeth, don’t worry about it. I’m going to figure this all out.

And she later came back to me. And she said to me, Elizabeth, in the last 20 years, I’ve been with this company, this has never happened to me. I have no idea why your current boss is laying you off knowing that you’re supposed to be joining our team. It doesn’t make any sense. And I remember when I was talking to him, and they said, Look, you know, I’m gonna be back in the office on Monday.

Could we just talk about it on Monday. And he said to me, Oh, no, actually on Monday, I’m gonna be on vacation. So I’m sitting there thinking, let me get this straight. You are calling me during my vacation time to lay me off, knowing that I might be getting another job. So that you can go on vacation and peace. That’s how it works. And you know, that was really a big breaking point for me, because in that split moment, I spent at the time two years working for this guy.

Traveling nights and weekend sacrificed, right? And in a moment, when they say that it takes years to build trust with the company, and minutes to lose trust. And just that one conversation, all of that eight years I spent with the company, God. And later on I come to find that it was all about internal politics. He originally didn’t want me to join that team because our capabilities would be too similar what, what I was doing on his team and what this new VP was trying to cut up.

But this was such a big breaking point for me because I felt my power taken away. And I said, Never again. So long story short, I ended up working for the new team came back on Monday went working for this new team, completely grateful that my new leader. She said Elizabeth, I don’t know what you’re going to be doing on my team. But we’ll figure it out. I didn’t even have a job description. But she had said to me, Elizabeth, I have heard great things about you.

So I’m just going to just figure it out when you come on board. And that’s really all it took. All it took for me to have this new role on this new opportunity. After working with her, I eventually built my business up to a point where I was confident I did enough referrals coming in where I could really take that big leap of faith to really go out on my own. I just never thought I would be an entrepreneur, I really thought I would have a corporate career and we just move up the ladder.

But I took that leap, leap of faith. And what you see here are my kids, Evan and Evelyn, eleven and nine here, and they were my reason, I decided to take that big leap of faith. And so I took the exit, I put on my shoes, and I was just like, you know what, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. And that’s how I got started. And the biggest lesson I learned that I hope that you’re going to be able to walk away with as we talk about leading remote teams, is how the right people really will lead to faster results for you. You know, that opportunity for me to join that new team. That wasn’t another cup.

That wasn’t the company that have found that opportunity for me. It was my own personal network, my own doing work for. I didn’t know at the time my boss my soon to be boss her team on the side line that got me recognized by her team to say, hey, let’s help Elizabeth because she’s an amazing worker. That’s really what started. So I realized the power of your network and finding the right people get to the faster results. That was a big shift for me. And that’s a shift that I hope that you’re going to be able, as we’ve talked about the class today be able to get you know, and it’s really scary.

When you step on your own, just know that there’s gonna be a lot of people looking and watching you. And I know for me when I started from startup, it was like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? Right? But once I got my first 10 K, once I got my first bundle of clients, I really started to see momentum build up in my business.