We recently connected with Sarah Dowds and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sarah, thank you so much for agreeing to open up about a sensitive and personal topic like being fired or laid-off. Unfortunately, there has been a rise in layoffs recently and so your insight and experience with overcoming being let go is relevant to so many in the community.
Which time…lol
I’m one of those people who isn’t meant to work for someone else, for a dozen reasons. Some I’m to blame for like I don’t believe in or trust authority figures, I don’t idolize people “above” me on the corporate hierarchy, I don’t play office politics & I think most companies play it too safe which bores me.
At most of my jobs my ideas were bigger than what they could support & that actually made for very unpleasant work environments. Most of the times the roles were keeping me small, I can’t recall a single job I had where I wasn’t verbally, emotionally or sexually abused in some way, so when the jobs didn’t work out, I would initially be frustrated at what I felt was an overall lack of care for me & my well-being, but then I would feel relieved.
Until I switched from working in-house to working for an agency. The first agency I worked for was a dream come true, I loved the job, the role, my clients, my manager & everyone else at the company. Unfortunately, that agency was in the early stages & I was laid off, & I wasn’t relieved at all, I was crushed.
During that time I learned a lot about working at an agency & I knew I wanted to keep working in that environment & luckily about 2 weeks later I started a new role at a different agency. The experience however, was not the same as my first experience, luckily I was laid off again & it was exactly what I needed.
I knew I loved working at an agency, I understood how they operated, I knew my strengths, so shortly after being laid off, I made the descision to start my own agency & a few weeks later I had a name, a website & I was fully up & running with a roster of clients.
One year later, I’m still running that agency & I can confidently say that being laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me for bringing me to where I am today; for that I am so grateful.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
When I started my business it was strictly Social Media Management & Influencer Marketing. I figured I would just have a few clients who needed help creating content or managing an influencer program & that would be it. Quickly I realized there were far more business owners who needed help than not, & I’m only one girl!
Before you start telling me to delegate & hire out, I want to be clear that is not my goal; so I’m okay with being a one woman show right now, even if it means I sometimes have a heavy plate. Regardless of growth, my goal is to help as many business owners as I can.
A few months into my agency, I started ATX (ATX Social Club) in an effort to do that. I created this club to help even more business owners, entrepreneurs, creators, influencers & more be able to strategize, grow & collaborate together with the purpose of growing their digital communities. I’ll be hosting bi-monthly content creation days, content creation retreats as well as quarterly workshops.
For the past 5ish months I’ve been going through a full rebrand (also on my own) & part of that rebrand has been creating a series of E-Books, to walk business owners through building their online presence, creating their content strategy & learning the basics of monetization. I call this portion of my business F*ck Yes Academy, because once they go through these steps, they’ll have people coming to them saying “F*ck Yes I want to work with you!”.
The E-books will be released in order of how they should be accomplished & they’ll be released in 3 phases. Phase one has already been released & includes 3 E-Books: Create Content Like A Pro, Build Your Brand & Find Your Niche
Once all 3 phases are released, my next step is to build out a live E-course for an exclusive selection of business owners to be able to join, master their mindset & learn more advanced strategies.
That pretty sums up my plans for helping as many business owners as possible. I truly believe that’s my purpose & I’m thoroughly enjoying the process of living it out.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Oh geez, only three!? Come on, can’t you tell I’m a talker!? Doesn’t 5 have a nice ring to it….
When it comes to starting a business the number one thing I would say to do is to join a local in person networking group. I’ve said it 100x but this step was the biggest game changer for me. When you’re in a room full of other people with big dreams, the walls melt, & the space becomes limitless. Truly.
The second thing I would suggest is getting really clear on who you are. I’m really big on personal development & over the past year I’ve taken a few courses. One of the first courses I took was a business leadership course & it required us to take 7 different personality tests. I did it all in one sitting & it took me a LONG time. The tests weren’t the long part, it was going through the results & I learned so much about myself. Before starting the tests, I couldn’t figure out how this was relevant to the course, but after-I got it. If I could suggest just one to do, I would say find out what your human design is, I promise it will not only give you a better understanding of yourself, but it will make you a much better business owner.
The third thing I would say, is to get REALLY good at self-care & I don’t mean taking long showers & doing facemarks!! I mean, knowing when you need to rest, exercising regularly, watching what you consume, read more, go on walks, eat well & take supplements, get 8 hours of sleep, make time to have fun, go to therapy, take care of your mental health & hold strong boundaries around your time.
And if you let me squeeze a quick fourth on it, it would be to NEVER assume you know it all, keep learning & keep striving for more.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
I’ll be honest, I don’t feel overwhelmed often, but when I do, it doesn’t take me long to realize that it’s likely because I fell off track in some way & didn’t even realize it.
I have a lot of routines & habits for different parts of the day/week/month & whenever I feel overwhelmed or off balance, I know it’s because I’ve slacked on the routines or habits.
For example it could be something seemingly small like not meal prepping, in the moment it may feel like an easy choice, but half way through the week I might find myself feeling overwhelmed & if I stop to think about it, the reason is because I’m having to decided what to eat & cook more than usual.
That’s just one example, that I can think of on the spot but their are dozens of reasons for feeling overwhelmed, here’s what I usually do
1. Drop everything, walk away from my laptop & make something to eat, sometimes overwhelm is the same as being hangry
2. I take time to enjoy it & get into a different head space
3. I journal about what’s really going on
4. I write myself a letter in response to that. It usually starts with me acknowledging again what’s going on & forgiving myself, followed by my plan of action to change the current state of things & I usually end it with a few positives/little wins.
After that I’ll reassess what I need to get done that day & depending on the list I might shorten it to 3 quick things so I can wrap up the day & give myself some rest
If you’re not used to journaling or talking to yourself, then this might feel like a strange practice, but I’m telling you it works!
Or you could probably just take a walk…I hear that works for a lot of people
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sheer-influence.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahd1217/
