Leap and the net will appear

What closing my business has taught me

by Amanda Cookson and Ken Blackwell

This week Leaders in Conversation spoke to entrepreneur Veronica Fossa about failure.

Author Julia Cameron put it well when she said: ‘Leap, and the net will appear,’ said Veronica Fossa, entrepreneur, public speaker and host of The Nourishing Workplace podcast. She was taking part in a Leaders in Conversation webinar entitled What You Lose by Fitting In. She shared how closing down her business came as a relief, and what she has learnt from the experience.

Veronica’s original business WE Factory was built around encouraging people to eat well in the workplace rather than simply getting by with ‘desktop dining’. Good food and sociable eating in the workplace can have a lot of benefits. She said: ‘There have been several studies carried out in fire stations around the benefits of employees cooking and eating together.’

‘They found that cooking and eating together not only helps generate support and trust between them, but there are also moments of serendipity which just happen when you’re sitting together with no agenda. It gives you a proper break in the day, to just sit together and share.’

‘And if you have people from different cultures, then they can showcase different food — it’s a great way to learn more about the other team members.’

‘And the other benefit is one of nutrition. People who have eaten a proper meal feel better. They won’t have that post-lunch dip, they will be happier and more productive. That’s a benefit for the team.’

‘And for the individual, if you know lunch is taken care of, you don’t have to think about taking something in with you, saving time and money. Plus it helps with employer branding — providing a nutritious lunch is going to help with perception both inside and outside the organisation. This in turn will both attract and retain talent, which is really important.’

Veronica had already started moving part of her business online when the pandemic hit. Because most of her work was around food in the workplace, with many people no longer going into work, most of her clients had dropped away. Veronica took this as the push she needed to close down her previous business, which she no longer felt encompassed everything she wanted to do.

‘I realised I was ready to let it go. And I felt so relieved. I felt I had outgrown that business. I had wanted to include other parts of myself for a long time but hadn’t been able to. There were things I wasn’t able to bring into the business because it had become so specific and so niche. I felt if it didn’t fit into ‘workplace and food’ I couldn’t do it.

‘Obviously it wasn’t an easy decision because I’d invested a lot of time and energy into it. But I already had a podcast and a blog, so some of the groundwork was already done.’

‘I shared in an online entrepreneur group that I was going to close my business. I said ‘I’m closing, I just realised that I don’t want to run this business anymore. I just want to do something different. And I was so surprised, because I was inundated with messages from people who had come to the same realisation — they either wanted to close their business or share their experience of having done so.’

‘Normally, it’s not something you talk about — that’s what I realised through this whole experience. There’s a lot of talk about launching or growing your business — the common definition of success. People don’t tend to see shutting a business down as the possibility for transition. They see it as walking away and as a failure.’

‘But for me, it was an opportunity to evolve. However, in order to evolve, I had to let go of what I was before.’

‘At the time, I was sacrificing my lifestyle for my business. That’s the thing about being self-employed. You have immense responsibility. It’s always up to you — no one is telling you what to do. And sometimes we create a box around ourselves. That’s really what I noticed about myself, I was forced into a box and I had to break free. I had to tear down the walls and thing, right, what can I do now? What opportunities can I explore?’

‘The thing I felt I had lost most by fitting in to people’s expectations of my business was fun. It had been a year since I had experienced fun within my business, it just felt more like an obligation.’

‘It’s not a problem to be niche. Not at all. But you want to create a business where you can combine all the different aspects of yourself, and I no longer felt I was doing that.’

‘When I decided to let the business go it happened at a very particular moment when I had lost all my business because of the pandemic. So it was easier to take the plunge. But then again, there have been a few times in my life when I have taken a leap and things have fallen into place. You have to trust that the net will appear, as Julia Cameron suggests.’

‘If the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that nothing is certain. We need to be able to live with uncertainty. So many people stay in a situation they’re unhappy with because they are afraid to make the jump — but that new thing could make you super happy and fulfilled. You need to get comfortable with the unknown.’

Veronica added that what helped her make the leap was considering different scenarios and outcomes — looking at relationships, health, spirituality and general lifestyle — not just work. She also found the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans helpful.

‘I’ve tried to look at it as a learning rather than a failure,’ she concluded. ‘I’ve read a lot of books and I’ve been working on myself a lot in terms of my mindset. And so I’ve been able to look at what I’ve learned from my business and am still learning. We’re all a work in progress.’

Veronica Fossa is a multi–passionate entrepreneur, public speaker, writer and the host of The Nourishing Workplace podcast (https://www.we-factory.co/the-nourishing-workplace-podcast/). Through her former consultancy, WE Factory, she was on a mission to better the conversations, rituals, and spaces around food at work. In addition to that, she now works with purpose-driven companies, B-corps, and modern entrepreneurs to help them inject creativity in their life and work on their own terms. She also curates What Women Say (www.whatwomensay.org), a library of quotes by extraordinary women.

Here is the full interview

Who are the hosts

Amanda Cookson and Ken Blackwell are the trans-Atlantic co-hosts of the web series Leaders in Conversation. To find out more about the series, its speakers and take a deeper dive into the themes, join the Leaders in Conversation Linkedin Group.

Amanda is a Coach and Founder of Northern Value Creators and is based in the UK. You can connect with Amanda via Twitter @AmandaCookson and on Linkedin at AmandaCookson.

Ken Blackwell, based in the US, is a speaker, facilitator and coach and CEO of InKlaritas. You can connect with Ken via Twitter @K_Blackwell and on Linkedin at KenBlackwell