Hi all,
I've been quiet. (I feel like I say that a lot, but it's true a lot of the time with this space.)
The world feels like it's on fire, and for a while now, everything I sat down to write felt kind of stupid. Tips for your LinkedIn headline? Five ways to price your offer? I believe in that work. (Of course I do.) But some weeks, I'd open a blank page, look at the news about AI ending the world, and close the laptop.
And my own world is still on fire, too. We are barreling toward a civil trial in what is now nearly seven-year legal battle with one of the most powerful companies in the world. Seven years. My youngest daughter was a baby in a diaper when this started. She's in first grade now, taking home medals in swimming, and reading up a storm.
My god, am I tired.
But I've learned something about quiet over these seven years. Silence feels like safety. It isn't. So I'm back, and I brought something with me.
It's called "FBI Agents Do Not Ring the Doorbell," and it's the first time I've stood on a stage and told the whole story. The morning the agents pounded on the glass. The weeks before, when federal prosecutors seized every dollar my family had. The day I got fired from a million-dollar job, on day five, because my boss read an article about my husband. The tumors the doctors found in my throat and my hip after years of living in fear.
And the part I avoided saying for a long time: I did not stand up like a superhero. I froze.
You can watch it here. It's about 13 minutes.
The roadmap.
The talk is built around an idea I borrowed from Spider-Man: the canon event. In every universe, the worst thing has to happen to Peter Parker for him to become who he is. I think that's true for the rest of us, too. (Minus the spandex.)
Your worst thing is coming, if it hasn't arrived already. The diagnosis. The layoff. The lawsuit. The marriage that ends in a text message. I won't rank suffering. But I can hand you the map nobody handed me:
- Identify your toolkit. David didn't beat Goliath with armor. He beat him with a slingshot. You have slingshots. Find them.
- Get to your lifeboat. Silence in crisis is isolation, and isolation is what breaks us. Call your people. That's why they're there.
- Put on your oxygen mask. I didn't, and it almost killed me. Water, protein, sleep, medicine if you need it. And joy, wherever you can find it.
- Embrace the mess. Martha Stewart went to federal prison and came out best friends with Snoop Dogg. We should all be studying her.
- Believe in yourself, even if you might lose. Surviving doesn't mean winning. This isn't a Disney movie. Step off the ledge anyway.
One small favor.
I didn't mean to build a life's work around my worst day. But here we are, and if I had to live through all of it, I want it to be useful to as many people as possible. I want this roadmap, and my voice, to travel as far as it can, because somewhere out there is a woman sitting on her bathroom floor who thinks she's the only one who ever froze.
You can help me reach her. I shared the talk on LinkedIn, and a comment from you on that post would mean the world. (It's also how the algorithm decides who else gets to see it. Annoying, but true.) Tell me which rule hit home, or what your own canon event taught you. I'll be reading every one.
Comment here!
And if one person came to mind while you were reading this, forward it to them.
One more thing. My new website comes out next week, and with it, a first look at what I've been quietly building these past few months. I'll just say this for now: it turns out the worst six years of my life taught me things that are useful far beyond my own kitchen table. It is the work. More soon. You'll see it here first.
The fight was the training. I believe that more today than the day I said it on that stage, and I'm still in the fight.
Don't let the bastards grind you down. I never will.
Amy
