Love, Loss and Grief
—of a small business owner.
April 2024, I was sitting at Wellington airport waiting for a flight bound for Queenstown. A friend and I were heading deep into the Fiordland bush for ten days hunting Wapiti (elk). The only way in or out was by helicopter, and the only way of communicating to the outside world was through satellite phone texts.
I had packed everything I needed with all weather elements in mind, except a good book – needed just in case we were tent-bound for a few days. I quickly ran into the airport book shop and chose a book purely based on the well designed cover. “Master of Change. How to excel when everything is changing – including you”, I felt an inner smile and made my purchase.
Sure enough, what was forecast for two days of rain over the ten day period, turned into nine days of rain. I had to resist reading the entire book in the first few days, instead only allowing for a few pages between wet walks collecting firewood.
This book had come at a perfect time. Eight months prior, I had decided to close the doors on my small design studio I had started only three and a half years before.
Love.
Running the studio was a dream come true for me, something that I had envisioned since I started my first design job at 24 years old. I had so much fun creating this space, growing with it, learning from it and expanding within its vessel. I had a wonderful team who contributed not only to the studio and our clients, but to my journey and understanding of people. We got to work with some really amazing humans and our community grew and grew.
I had built the team so that we could all work remotely, meaning we could all be agile and flexible with lifestyle, location and time zones. It was working well until I moved to the outback of Australia with my partner at the time, so he could pursue his career. I found it difficult to network, convert sales and build on our community (as one might expect in a desert). On top of this, Aunty Cindy had chosen to close New Zealand’s borders due to covid, and for those lucky few who did make it through, had to quarantine at a pretty hefty price. My plan had been to visit home every three months and maintain a healthy client base and mental state in general (I knew I would only be able to handle so much red dirt). This wasn’t an option and it took its toll on both the business and my emotional and mental wellbeing.
During this time, I had taken advantage of the covid loans and financial assistance through IRD (thank goodness), but this simply wasn’t enough. I’ll also admit, I’m a creative – accounting isn’t my strong suit and I gradually found myself in debt with IRD as I was trying to make the most of each client payment to pay my overheads. My fingers were crossed that I would get ‘the big project’ that would pay down what I owed in GST and tax.
Eventually I made it back home, two staff down and a lot of scrambling to do. Like many businesses in the middle of covid, sales continued to be slow and it seemed people were starting to be more conscious of where and how they were spending their money. I grasped at straws, took any and all work I could, and ran myself into the ground. I was down to one staff member and I was holding on for dear life. I took two days out of my routine (following a lot of tears), to deep dive into my options. With a plan of attack in my back pocket I went on to pivot – strip down to no staff, a rebrand, a focus on te ao Māori and a new goal in mind. It had been staring me in the face and it was time to take action on what was calling to me.
Studio Waru was a natural evolution to the next phase and one I truly thought would last the distance. I managed to gain some traction and not only brought in aligned Māori business, but contracted to larger design agencies with government clients to assist in te ao Māori briefs.
Loss.
I felt like things were on the up. My accountant said otherwise. I worked with him through some personal coaching sessions to unpack what was going on. I couldn’t keep hoping that ‘the big project’ would come in any longer, it was time to let go.
August 2023, three years and four months after registering as a business, and a world pandemic later, I surrendered and liquidated *written with a huge amount of vulnerability*.
Relief. I no longer had this big black cloud hanging over me as the debt had been cleared. I could start working towards a life that I had dreamed of (and where my expectations were much lower) – you know, things like applying for a mortgage, being able to fix my car, not lying awake at night wondering how I was going to pay rent next month.
So I began the search to secure a permanent role, and continued taking on freelance and contract mahi – but it still wasn’t enough. Financial belts were tightening, the elections soon followed. Government contracts that were scheduled to carry me for four months were pulled out from under my feet, hiring freezes began and worry about the economy led to almost a complete halt on spending. I had committed to sponsoring the local Māori business awards, but I was about to stand up in front of my community feeling like a failure, a fraud with a company in liquidation. I quickly rebranded to something I felt I could stand behind (Davies Studio). They say speed kills, and this wasn’t something I did slowly or thoughtfully. I felt like everyone could see straight through it—it felt inauthentic.
My perspective had shifted to a not-so-desirable place. Who am I if not a designer? Who am I if not an entrepreneur, team leader, visionary, or connector? I had invested so much time, energy and money into my business that it was all I had become. I felt like I had lost a part of myself and was struggling to fill that void again.
Grief.
The months that followed, and before I picked up that book, I had every reason to be happy but I couldn’t allow myself the pleasure of happiness. I was grieving a loss of identity and I needed to recenter to find it again. But where would I start?
The process of surrendering to this grief was difficult. The guilt I felt in what seemed like wallowing sent me into far away places of empty thoughts—I was so tired, and so over it all. The constant decline of job applications, unsuccessful interview rounds and meeting with people about potential work leading to nothing ground me down. Am I even hireable? Was it all for nothing?
I lay in my sleeping bag on night seven in Fiordland, rain hitting the tent just centimeters from my face. The red light of my head torch lit up page 186. “Five questions for embracing change”.
“To solidify and make concrete what we’ve learned, it can be helpful to ask yourself the following five questions. Language is a powerful tool. Once you put words to an unnamed thought, feeling, or concept you shine a light on it and make it tangible—and thus you can wrestle with it in new and meaningful ways. Even if you don’t have immediate answers, simply asking these questions will help weave rugged flexibility into the fabric of your life.”
The five questions are;
Where in your life are you pursuing fixity where it might be beneficial to open yourself to the possibility—or in some cases, the inevitability—of change?
What parts of your life are you holding on to unrealistic expectations?
Are there elements of your identity to which you cling too tightly?
How might you use core values—the rugged and flexible boundaries of your identity—to help you navigate the challenges of your life?
In what circumstances do you tend to react when you would benefit from responding, and what conditions predispose you to that?
I wrote notes in my phone to answer these questions. When I returned home I revisited my answers, edited and added to them. All I had focused on in the last three and a half years revolved around who I was as a business owner, measuring my self worth against the success of the studio. Nothing else had mattered to me, not really. I rewrote my personal values and then started to implement small changes to my every day to start to realign. I got rid of rigid daily structures that no longer served me, allowing for more flow and creativity.
It’s still a process and I speak to this having only started to feel the benefits in the last few weeks. But it has resulted in a more relaxed nervous system and overall better well being. I’m feeling happiness again from other facets of my life and I’m here for it.
I’m still very much on the journey and in search of ‘that role’ but I feel as though I have come home to who I am. I’ve realised that what makes me powerful is all of the above experiences combined with a decade of design knowledge, not one or the other. I am so much more than just a designer, entrepreneur and team leader—I am Britt—wāhine māori, musician, aunty, hunter, creative.
Every experience is a learning opportunity that adds another tool to the kete, sometimes it just takes a little time and self reflection to see the lesson.
Master of Change is by Brad Stulberg.
