Let me tell you something real.
I didn’t wake up one day inspired to be an entrepreneur.
I didn’t journal my way into clarity.
I didn’t “follow my passion.”
I got laid off.
In 2017, I was living in Germany. My husband was active-duty military. I had a job I loved, a job that mattered. I was training service members on how to transition out of the military and prepare for civilian life. I was good at it. I was respected. I had finally landed somewhere that fit.
And then the contract disappeared.
RIF.
Reduction in force.
That’s the nice way of saying, you’re done.
So there I was, husband deployed, two kids in school, living overseas, and suddenly unemployed. And I knew one thing immediately. I was not about to go chase another job just to quit it a few months later.
That didn’t make sense.
What did make sense was asking the question I had avoided for years.
What’s in this for me?
Not emotionally.
Not spiritually.
Practically.
I had helped other people build businesses. I understood systems. I understood structure. I understood money. I just hadn’t been forced to put all of that energy into myself yet.
This time, I didn’t have a choice.
So I moved. Packed up my life. Came back to California. Got closer to my mom. Got my kids settled. And then I picked up the phone and said something that probably sounded crazy at the time.
“Let’s take women around the world.”
That was it.
That was the plan.
No fancy website.
No brand strategy.
No long-term roadmap.
Just action.
I didn’t need confidence. I needed movement.
So I started small. A meetup. Ten women. Cheap flyers. Chick-fil-A. Four sales. Almost no profit. But it worked. And more importantly, I worked.
Here’s what people get wrong about moments like that.
They think entrepreneurship is about courage.
It’s not.
It’s about leverage.
Losing my job didn’t make me brave. It made me honest. I didn’t want another boss. I didn’t want another position that disappeared when a contract did. I wanted control, options, ownership.
So I built something that could give me that.
Not because I loved travel.
Because I knew it.
I had lived overseas for years. Planned trips. Coordinated logistics. Took people all over the world. What felt normal to me was valuable to other people.
And that’s when it clicked.
This wasn’t about passion.
It was about value.
Once I understood that, everything shifted.
I stopped asking, “What do I feel like doing?”
And started asking, “What can stand without me?”
That layoff didn’t derail my life.
It clarified it.
Sometimes what feels like loss is just leverage showing up in disguise.
~Karamel McCoy