Farewell.
My heart raced as I stared at the send button. “You know you don’t have to send this email,” I told myself. I sat in my fancy desk chair in my fancy law firm office in downtown Washington, D.C. for what seemed like an eternity.
I went back and forth on whether I would actually hit send. Hitting send on that Thursday evening at 5:02 PM would be the first public declaration that I was leaving my life as a big law firm attorney and embracing a life of entrepreneurship to do something I truly loved.
Although I had written my first children’s book a few years prior to that day, I still considered myself a lawyer, and writing was “just a little thing I did.” I was a lawyer. That’s it. That’s all. Up until that day, I had been affiliated with fancy job titles, big government agencies, and big law firms. Now, I was publicly announcing my new, multi-hyphenated identity. I was a lawyer [hyphen] children’s book writer [hyphen] entrepreneur. Years later, at a conference in New York, I would learn the term, “multi-hyphenate,” which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as “someone who does several different jobs, especially in the entertainment industry.” I never quite knew how to describe myself, but when I learned this word, I leaned into it because this described me perfectly.
At the time that I was staring blankly at my computer screen, contemplating whether or not to hit send, I did not know the word, “multi-hyphenate.” At that moment I was a lawyer, who wanted to pursue a new passion, a passion which expanded beyond being a lawyer. That new-found identity, that ambiguity of who I was becoming terrified me. With sweaty palms and a racing heart, I inhaled deeply. Then, I hit send. Then I screamed.
It had taken me far too long to draft that email with that one-word subject line, “Farewell.” It had taken me months of deciding whether I would ever be courageous enough to make this huge change in my life. How I viewed myself and how the world viewed me would potentially change. Was I ready for that?
Even after hitting send, my transition into owning my hyphenated identity was gradual. I was publicly and privately redefining the singular identity that I had known so long, that I had worked so hard for, that so many people had cheered me on to obtain–being a lawyer. I was now planning to deeply dive into something that I equally loved–being a children’s book writer.
Shortly after making the public declaration that I was going to write books, someone who I highly respected responded, “that will be fun.”
Fun? The word stunned and stung me. Lawyering was serious and carried gravitas. Lawyers had fun, but not an overwhelming amount — and certainly not in their work. To have my new passion reduced to “fun” felt dismissive of its seriousness. Yet, the person was absolutely right in their assessment; I would not only be doing something fun, I would be doing what I considered to be my superpowers–innovating through my words, building connections, and inspiring others. Yes, that was fun, indeed, but the word still scared me.
After sending that farewell email, I continued my writing journey, while still practicing law. At social and professional events, when someone would ask me what I did for a living, I would instinctively still say, “I’m a lawyer.” The “fun” part of me–the children’s book author–was deleted from the answer. After a friend would poke me a bit to talk about my work, the person with whom I was speaking would remark, “you light up when you speak about writing.”
My eyes got bigger, my pitch got a little higher, my smile got brighter. I started talking with my hands. I was talking about something that I had created, something that I had birthed with a pen. In that process of talking about my author identity in real life, I was re-affirming my multi-hyphenate identity. But what I realized in speaking about the identities that lied on each side of my own hyphens was that I was igniting unknown superpowers–the power of connection and inspiration.
Take a second to think about how you instinctively introduce what you do. Now, I want you to think about the other parts of who you are, the parts that you do not instinctively discuss, maybe out of fear, maybe out of imposter syndrome.
Think about the feeling that you get when you go into the second and third and maybe the fourth parts of your hyphen. I have been in so many networking events and casual conversations with people discussing the first parts of their hyphens, the parts of our hyphens that we are most comfortable with. How many of us have had that moment when you introduce the second part of your hyphen? Teacher-Caretaker. Accountant-Mom. Engineer-artist. Dentist-gardener. Doctor-coder. When you introduce the second, or maybe even the third hyphen, you and the person with whom you are talking have a magical moment of connection.
Your shoulders drop a bit; you each lean in a bit to more carefully listen to what the other person is saying. Each of you connect more deeply because of you have revealed a part of you that the world may not initially see. That true human connection–sharing an experience with a stranger can build a connection. That connection can lead to collaboration on mutually shared passions; it can lead to the sharing of resources, it can lead to new innovations. This is the gift of the hyphen: when you embrace all sides of who you are, you deepen your relationships, and you expand your possibilities. Innovation, joy, purpose, and even fun, live in your hyphens.
Being a multi-hyphenate entrepreneur has allowed me to travel the world and build connections and friendships with company founders, creatives, and executives from all over the world. The second part of my hyphen has created a new life, one that I love deeply and brings me joy and a sense of purpose every day.
My farewell email opened the door to a brand new life of constant innovation — innovation as a lawyer and innovation as an author/creator.
If you are in a season of saying goodbye, remember this: Farewells are not periods. They are hyphens, expanding who you are. Never delete the parts of who you are, and while you are embracing your hyphens, make sure to have lots of fun.
To hear more of my journey of embracing a multi-hyphenate identity as a lawyer-children’s book author-entrepreneur, you can watch my TEDx Logan Circle talk here.