For the first couple of years, I kept thinking: I love this. Let's keep this thing going.
And we did.
Then year 2 hit. Year 3 hit. The recession showed up and took a sledgehammer to everything. The market shifted overnight. Hiring froze. Conversations dried up. I had to figure out how to keep going when the ground underneath the whole industry had crumbled. And I did. Year 4 was the pivot year.
By year 10, something else started pulling at me. I launched an early career development program for college students. Traveled to universities. Taught workshops. Stood in front of rooms full of young people who had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side of graduation, and I got to be the person who helped them get ready for it. I met hundreds. Helped more.
That chapter? One of the best of my life.
Then year 14. COVID.
The bottom didn't fall out this time. It evaporated. Overnight, everything we knew about work, hiring, and how people showed up changed. No playbook. No precedent. Just figure it out and keep moving.
So we did.
Year 17, something started tugging at me differently. Not a program. Not a service. Something bigger. A community. A place where people could get real advice when they actually needed it. Professional development from a perspective that wasn't corporate, wasn't textbook, wasn't sanitized for mass consumption. Something that said: here's what I actually learned. Here's what actually works. Here’s how you use it.
Knowledge is power, right? I had years of knowledge just sitting there. And something, or maybe someone, if you know you know, kept whispering: give it to them.
I almost did. But came up with excuses. Put other things in front of a calling.
Then year 19 arrived.
The bottom wasn't pulled out this time. It was ripped. Disintegrated. AI arrived and rewrote the rules nobody had finished learning yet. The economy picked up an attitude. Organizations lost confidence. Budgets tightened. Layoffs rolled through like a rogue crosscut shredder that had snagged the tail of your shirt...unhinged, mechanical, and impossible to power down. The candidates I'd spent years placing were now flooding my inbox. And I was watching an entire profession I love get shaken to its core.
I couldn't hold it anymore.
Year 20. It's my reflection year. Twenty years of truth. Thousands of conversations. Every recession, every pivot, every comeback I'd watched people make. It had to go somewhere.
So here we are.
Today is my official launch. With three subscribers.
Three.
And I'm at peace with that, because I know something about seeds. You don't plant one and walk away. You tend it. You show up for it. You give it time.
My whole life has been about making a shift happen.
Every Tuesday, you'll hear from me. No excuses. No disappearing acts. I'm showing up.
But I need you to do something too.
Tell somebody. Tell a friend who's job searching and feels stuck. Tell a colleague who's managing people and losing sleep over it. Tell the person in your circle who's building something and needs someone in their corner. Tell them there's a seat at this table I’m building, and it's free.
From 3 to many more. That's my goal.
Can I do that alone? No.
But we can.
Help me help you make SHIfT happen.
~Tasha
