And you thought the Twitter takeover was bad?

The power of the pause...

Inside Scribe Media

Hey Scribbler,

So here’s the scene:

It’s Wednesday, May 24th at 3:30pm and a Slack message pops up calling a company wide all hands meeting at 4:30pm. (Never a good sign.) 

Our CEO (JeVon) has been talking about resigning and supposedly been working on the right deal to sell our company. He’s been preaching “people first,” on LinkedIn for months. 

Yet every week, one Scribe Media employee after another announces their departure on the general Slack channel. (Like Harlan, our editor-in-chief from its inception 😳) Twice in the last two months our paychecks were delayed for days. 

Still, I just got a raise on Friday. So I’m optimistic. 

A text beeps from my coworker Carmela asking what’s up…

What followed was the silence before the mushroom cloud: 

In the Scribe Media world, all my coworkers hopped on a Zoom call that divided them into two camps like hostages who weren’t allowed to talk to each other. 

In an acupuncture studio less than 6 miles from Scribe’s head office, I was lying on a table with fine needles inserted into my skin. 

Cue the aftershock…

80% of the company was on one call with the CEO. 

20% were on a call with the CXO (Chief Experience Officer).

The 80% got no severance.

No PTO payout.

Health Insurance ended at midnight.

That salary increase I got literally 3 business days earlier? I may as well have dreamt it.

And the nail in the coffin one lightning-quick hour later, while frantically trying to download as much as I could:

Scribe Media successfully orchestrated their own Twitter/X fiasco. Without the billionaire backing. 

And I know we’re taught to do the whole bootstrap/hustle/bounce back thing. But I decided to hit pause for the summer. 

On everything. Job search. Updating my copywriting website. Deciding what’s next. All the plans I had outlined for you and this lovely Substack column. 

I just needed a few minutes to reset and reflect. 

I flew to Europe. Hugged friends I hadn’t seen in 16 years. Far away from anything in the Scribe Media universe.

I spent August visiting a sweet friend (who’s also a great romance writer) in the Netherlands. 

We talked about writing and life. I got her excited about Substack. 

(She’s now Becky Wicks at Traveling Inwards. Go read her!) 

She got me excited about collaborating on Substack. More about that later. 

I hopped on the Eurostar to London for my first visit in 16 years. I wrote in my journal most mornings. Took lots of photos. Long bike rides, walks, and museums. 

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Now? I’m back and recharged. 

And over the next few Sundays I’m deconstructing the power of my pause into bite sized, very do-able insights to stage your own (sans bankrupt company) pause, along with some prompts that helped me be more intentional about deciding what’s next.

Spoiler alert: An eye-opening takeaway during this time off is how essential clarity and intention are to create the next chapter of your life. You gotta take a minute to reflect and get real about what is and isn’t working for you. 

Friend, this is your permission slip: take that break if you need it! 

You don’t have to fly to England… unless you want to ;-) A regular scribbling (freewriting) practice can really move the needle. Simply get it all out on the page daily for a week or two. And see what shows up. You’ll be shocked at the wisdom you have locked inside you that reveals itself on the page. 

I’m curious, have you ever hit pause at a crossroads and taken some much needed time off? I’d love to know what you did and how you feel when you look back on that time. 

Leave a sentence, a couple words, or a Buzzfeed-style download in the comments below. 

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