Welcome to another edition of my Weekly Journal! If you're new to grace + hudson, I use this space to share about my journey from lawyer to jewelry business owner. It's been quite a journey! Some of you may know this already, but grace + hudson is not my first business. I actually owned a jewelry store back in 2010 that only survived for about a year. It was a brick and mortar store in New Jersey where I grew up. So yes, that's right, I actually quit my lawyer job twice! Once in 2010, after about 2.5 years in the legal profession, and then again in 2017.

A lot of people say to me, "Wow, you were brave to try again." I suppose that is true, but I don't see it that way. That first business - that first "failure" - proved to me that I wasn't going to die if I tried to start a business or change careers. I say that with some humor but it's true! When you want to make a big change like I did - opening a jewelry store after practicing law for 11 years - we think the decision to do so is life or death. It can feel massively overwhelming. But the fact of the matter is, it isn't. I don't say that to trivialize the change, but to emphasize that the decision isn't necessarily permanent. If it doesn't work out, you'll probably just go back to your first career and maybe even the same job you had before (if you left on good terms). Sure, you might lose some money in the process, but relatively speaking the damage is quite minimal. It is NOT life or death. My first failure taught me that. When I closed my brick and mortar jewelry store in 2011, I went back to being a full-time lawyer and I paid off the small amount of debt I had acquired from the store. That's it! Was there some shame involved? Of course. It was a little embarrassing to fail. But those feelings quickly passed in a matter of days. People are too wrapped up in their own lives to spend too much time dwelling on a failed jewelry store. Who cares, right? It's an interesting bit of gossip - that's about it.

So, if you are just dying to make a huge career change or start your own business, do it! Try it out. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I guarantee you you'll learn some things along the way and probably meet some new people. And maybe, like me, you'll try again 5 or 6 years down the road with different results.

If you'd like my Weekly Journal sent straight to your inbox every week, click here to subscribe. I hope you're able to learn something valuable from my business journey and my experiences!

P.S. Are you on Pinterest? I created a Weekly Journal board so you can easily navigate all of my journal entries. You can view and follow the board by clicking here. I've written so much about quitting my lawyer job to start g+h and I want to make it easier for you to access and read the entries that resonate most!

xoxo,

Stacy