Partnership

I was explaining to a friend the other day that although intellectually I understood why Katie had to end our partnership at Operation Move and transition into more of an ambassadorship role, emotionally I never accepted it. When it happened I changed a lot of things. I changed directorship registries, I changed bank accounts, I changed email addresses, I changed almost everything. But I just couldn’t bring myself to change the shareholding structure, even if she asked me to.

In those first few months, despite working incredibly hard (and I did work insanely hard) I always kind of expected the business to fail. And I was kind of shocked when it didn’t. It is hard to walk away from a partnership and not find a sense of betrayal in your success, I think. And at the time I asked a lot of other people who had been involved in partnerships how they had handled something like that and to be honest I didn’t get any answers. Or to be more accurate, they answered but they didn’t really understand my question. Which makes total sense, because most people I asked had formed friendships through businesses, not a business through a friendship.

We always said that the business was great, but friendship came first. And it was strange and disjointed making that transition because I was used to talking five million times a day about business things and all of a sudden that was gone. But given a bit of time we just talked five million times a day about other things instead.

Today I was watching Ronda Rousey talk about her defeat to Holly Holm and how she lost all sense of purpose after the loss because the thing that defined her (being undefeated) was no longer hers and without who was she? And I could relate to that. But it also forces to stand on your own, to go your own way and be unique enough to stand apart and be visible. It forces you to make your own mistakes, which only you are responsible for. And it forces you to redefine your own meaning and purpose.

I always just left the space there. I didn’t have the heart to let it go, or fill it with something else or someone else.

You can never go home again. Isn’t that what they say? But you can build something entirely new. And with that in mind, Katie has agreed to come back in as a Marketing Manager and she is starting something which is connected, but separate. If you’d like to find out more you can watch out for updates over on Instagram.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

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