EPISODE 10

My journey to entrepreneurship and Amsterdam

In this deeply personal episode, I’m sharing my story — how a fast-paced career in marketing eventually led to burnout, a life-changing year of travel, a surprising new home in Amsterdam, and finally, taking the leap into entrepreneurship.

I’ll walk you through the highs, the lows, and pivotal moments that shaped my journey.

show transcript

Hey, everyone. So I think it’s about time I shared my story, how and why I started a business, how I ended up in Amsterdam, light bulb moments as I gained clarity on my brand, why I love what I do, and a whole lot more.

So my story begins in a smoky office in Downtown Manhattan. I say smoky because this was 1996, and advertising execs could still chain smoke at their desks just like an episode of Mad Men. So I’d spend my days quite literally running from the fax machine to the art department to the phone, placing ads in The New York Times before the 4PM daily deadline, at which time I finally got a break to grab a sandwich and scarf it down at my desk. Not gonna lie. It was tough.

This fast paced, workaholic culture, it forced me to be resourceful and resilient, but it was also incredibly toxic. And yet I thought working like this was normal and admirable. I had been brainwashed, and I don’t say that to be dramatic. I remember thinking how ridiculous it seemed for Europeans to take six weeks off a year. I could not wrap my head around that, and I remember how nervous I was in the job interview to get this ad agency job.

I had worked so hard on my CV, the writing, the design, the high quality paper stock. I had handed it over so eager for my future boss to review it, and he glanced at it for, you know, maybe five seconds, and then looked at my reference letter, a glowing testimonial about my work as a marketing intern, and his entire expression changed. That was all he needed to see. You know, many years later, the same thing happened to me as a business owner. I was on discovery call.

The conversation was flowing nicely. At one point, I asked if they had looked at my website, which is sort of like your CV in business. You know? And his answer was, nope. So and so referred me to you, and I trust her, and that’s good enough for me.

So, you know, my first lesson in business and marketing was how there truly is nothing more powerful than a testimonial or referral. But back to the ad agency, I toughed it out there for nine months, then took my one week of vacation to interview and landed a position as the junior member of the marketing team at Court TV, a cable TV network. Now if you’re American, you may remember Natalie Morales, who was an anchor on the Today Show. Well, she was in the junior marketing role before me, so she actually trained me to do my job. And I remember her ambitions to be an anchor and how the network didn’t really believe in her, which just goes to show that there will always be naysayers who try to tell you your biggest dreams aren’t possible.

Anyway, at Court TV, I learned how to create print marketing pieces from concept to copy to graphic design. And I also started dating one of the cameramen who would later convince me to move to Washington DC. I enjoyed my time at Court TV, but once again worked way too hard and had taken on so much work there that they immediately hired two people to replace me when I quit. From there, I jumped over to American Express where I churned out lots of PowerPoints for the business development team. I worked in the building actually right next to the World Trade Center and would sometimes go there on my lunch break because the Ground Floor had a mall with shops and food.

I left that job just nine months before 09-11 and ended up at a tech startup in Downtown DC a mile from the White House, which was also a scary place to be on 09-11, but that’s a story for another day. Then, you know, for the next thirteen years, I continued to bounce around to different jobs in different industries, but always in some kind of marketing role. I repeated this cycle of burnout and quitting out of frustration, but was always able to find another job thanks to my diverse skills and ability to market myself, and let’s face it, some unearned privilege as well. My European friends would find this hard to believe, but there were nights that I stayed at the office right through until the next morning. My self identity was completely wrapped up around the job, and the job was priority number one.

You know, the the overworking was addictive, destructive behavior, but nobody stepped in to stage an intervention. No one shook me and said, Beth, what are you doing? Not my family, friends, coworkers, bosses, because you see, this was acceptable and admirable behavior. I was grateful that I had a career and a way to provide for myself, but at what cost? You know?

As I started to get closer and closer to turning 40, I knew something had to change. Some people call it a midlife crisis, while others call it a midlife awakening. And I think this midlife point is such a powerful, fascinating phase of life where we awaken to what we truly want out of life, to who we truly are versus what our families and society deem valuable. I did enjoy marketing, but I was burnt down on the corporate game, the office politics, terrible bosses, feeling unempowered and exploited, and having to fight for a week off. I thought, okay.

When am I going to be able to travel to places like India, Africa, and Asia? After many long discussions with my husband, we hatched a plan to save money, sell our stuff, quit our jobs, and backpack around the world for a year. And I have to tell you, it was both the hardest and best thing we’ve ever done. I turned 40 on that trip, and we visited 23 countries, which was a bit too much, but it’s hard to edit it down. You know?

Experiencing these faraway places firsthand made me feel more complete. It made the world feel more tangible. It gave me an appreciation for how we’re all connected and a self awareness to understand the aspects of me that are uniquely American. One of the many places we visited was Amsterdam, and a couple funny things happened there. And, no, I’m not talking about those funny smelling plants.

When we were walking around Rembrandtplein, we came across the Booking.com headquarters, and my husband said, oh, look. Booking. That’d be a cool place to work, you know, given that he works on apps and loves travel. And then later, when we were walking around Elandsgracht, which has a lovely neighborhood vibe as does most of the city, It kinda reminded me of the West Village in Manhattan. And I said to my husband, you know, this is such a cool city.

I could see us living here. But these statements at the time, they were just casual conversation. We never dreamed that we’d actually end up living in Amsterdam. Well, when we got back to The States after that year of backpacking around the world, the plan was to relocate to Portland, Oregon. So we took three months to drive there in an epic road trip driving from New York all the way down to New Orleans across Texas through the beautiful Southwest Route 66 and up the Pacific Coast.

Once we landed in Portland, it was time to look for jobs again. And one day, my husband comes across this job post on Reddit for a position at Booking in Amsterdam. He applied for it sort of on a whim and, got the job. So then we had a big decision to make. But by then, we knew we could adapt to a different country, and Amsterdam seemed like a perfect fit.

Nine years later, I can confirm it was. And as for me, when I landed in Amsterdam, I did feel ready to start my own business, but I thought that if I could find a job that checks all my boxes, that that might be a better way to integrate into a new country. And every business needs marketing, so I thought, why not do marketing for a company that’s doing real good in the world? And so I landed a marketing job at a software company that empowers people with physical vision, communication, and reading impairments. It was Dutch owned but had a diverse staff and customer base.

And while there were many wonderful things about this experience, I ran into some really difficult challenges. The reality of the job was not aligned with what I was hired to do. I was once again overstretched and given too many responsibilities. I was not able to implement improvements in the marketing department because no one wanted things to change, and no one could enforce change given the flat organizational structure. And worst of all, one of the employees was bullying me and getting away with it given her deep connections to the community we served.

I learned later that I wasn’t the first person she bullied, and I’m sure I wasn’t the last. So the weight of all these things built up and up and up, and yet I didn’t wanna just quit and give up. I tried so hard to make it work. I wanted to be able to come home and put work out of my mind instead of letting it keep me up at night. At the same time, I was still adjusting to being in a foreign country and shifting my identity.

Layer on top of that, I was thinking, if I quit this job and quit being this corporate marketer, then who am I? Who am I? And what is my purpose in this place and time? I was stuck and and scared. So I stayed and struggled and tried to put on a brave face every day.

But the moment I got home, I would burst into tears. I was anxious and exhausted, and I had a very short fuse because these are the symptoms of prolonged stress. This was leading up to the grand finale, the burnout to end all burnouts. And sadly, I know many of you listening know exactly what I’m talking about and have been through it as well. I suspect this person who gave me a hard time, whose bad behavior one day just happened to be the last straw that pushed me over the edge to quit.

I suspect they relished it as a win, but in fact, I’m grateful because it pushed me to do what I was ready in my heart and mind to do, start my own business and finally feel the true autonomy, joy, and fulfillment that I get from being my own boss and empowering others to do the same.

So often pain fuels passion, and that fuels a brilliant business idea.

My why and what really drives me is empowering people to start and grow their own businesses so they can truly shine and share their gifts, so they can gain the freedom to create their own rules, to create whatever they want, and so they can avoid the kind of pain and anguish I often felt as an employee.

So come along with me to the next episode where I continue my story, how I started my business, how I gained clarity on it all, and some key moments in the journey.

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