Career Egg Crack

Ever heard someone ask, “So, when did your egg crack?” It’s a thing in the trans community. There, an “egg” is someone who hasn’t quite figured out they’re trans yet. And the “egg crack moment”? Well, that’s the lightbulb moment when you realize you’re not the cis person you thought you were all along.

From what I understand, the process leading up to the “egg crack moment” involves enduring years of hardship, discomfort, and searching. The actual cracking of the egg signifies the resolution of these challenges, where everything falls into place, bringing a sense of relief and assurance. When you become aware of other options and feel less limited and uncomfortable about conforming. When the backdrop in The Truman Show gets peeled back and horizons expand infinitely.

I write about this because when I heard the term ‘egg crack’, it spoke to me. Not because of my gender-identity, but because of my career identity. And I do think that career identity is very much a thing. It doesn’t get the same attention, or press. It’s less divisive, maybe less intrusive and personal. But I’m here to tell you it causes angst. Situational discomfort. Embarrassment. All the things.

If you’d have been walking on Hampstead Heath on a drizzly Sunday afternoon in the early 90’s, chances are you’d see a young girl with frizzy hair walking with her dad. Forming her career identity. I don’t know if I cherished this then, but in hindsight I realize how rare this was and probably still is. Thanks Dad.

What did we talk about? What did we find in common? For me, dad time was business lessons time. My father is a bit like ‘the most interesting man in the world’ campaign, from Dos Equis Beer.

Bearded, debonair.

Outrageously worldly.

He speaks languages, finds his way around anywhere on any continent (before GPS), dresses well, makes a great cup of coffee and has had many careers. As a child this was frustrating. When filling out forms, the line next to ‘Parent occupation’ always caused a bit of anxiety. I put ‘businessman’ but longed for something simpler. But this is not a letter about my dad. I’m just trying to lay the groundwork so you’ll understand, as I am trying to, the context for our chats. And where perhaps my dreaming — and his validation of my dreaming- came from.

For as long as I can remember, I found business exciting. I was born in to the shadow of an unwinding empire which my grandfather, a Polish refugee, had built. Everywhere were the markings of something big that had moved, had recently been relegated to family lore. Other fmailies may visit relics of ancient civilizations. We toured our own relics. “That’s where we had a factory” we would be told on long road trips, stuffed in to the back of a Volvo station wagon. “I used to do business with a guy in this part of Switzerland” woven into family vacations. “Our largest shop was right here,” A Sunday outing to central London.

That grandfather died when I was very young. I don’t remember him but maybe I got some of my artistic talent from him. I like to think so.

My grandmother though, with her high standards, innate talent and remarkable taste was a living role model for me. From her I learned discipline, matching creativity with craft, and patience. Also I learned I was grossly inadequate with these things.

I spent my 20s dedicated to fashion design. I read the magazines. I got a BA from the best college in Israel. (@Shenkar) I interned on Oxford street. @Topshop.

I worked as a pattern cutter, (even though I was 9 months pregnant and couldn’t reach the table over my stomach.) I won an award in Italy. (Thanks @ITS) I got a coveted job at a firm of my dreams. (#Anthropologie) I got ‘let go’ in the bust of 2008. I was very, very passionate and dedicated.

I spent my 30s building my own businesses. I launched a sketchpad which got picked up by Chronicle books. I launched a bodysuit line which got picked up by Bloomingdales and Net a Porter. I saw my designs on celebrities and in magazines. But making a profit was really, really hard. And I was very alone. The abyss was never far away. The dreams lost their sparkle close up.

I thrashed about for a while. Flailing? Interior design. Marketing. Corporate America. Trying on identities like outfits and feeling the impostership.

All this to say, if you’re dissatisfied, uncomfortable, oddly ashamed of your occupation title… I see you. I feel you. I’ve been there my whole life- and I think there’s a happy and expansive path forward if you can shift your identity from role to features. More on that in a minute.

Well, I’m in my 40s now. I met with a friend and mentor over coffee recently, to discuss next career moves. I told her my Linked in was a mess. That it doesn’t tell a story people know what to do with. That I want something simple for my kids to put on their forms. She scanned my background and said something life changing. “The way you connect the dots will end up being your selling point.” Somewhere deep inside me I heard a shell crack.

How true. So here it is. My selling point.

I learned that although I can invariably tell you what will be in fashion next season, although I can feel in my bones when colors or an outfit become balanced, I am not the master seamstress my grandmother is.

And though I can connect a product and a market, feel where there’s demand and weave a narrative which will sell, I am not the visionary business person my grandfather was. I think I am a third thing. A unique creature who can smell the opportunity and understand the nuts and bolts steps to get there.

“That’s a pretty audacious claim, Tamar” I hear you say. You’d be right, it is. And I don’t make it lightly.

If your identity is wrapped up in a belief like “I am a fashion designer.” What happens when you sell your brand? As James Clear writes in ‘Atomic Habits’: “The key to mitigating these losses of identity is to redefine yourself such that you get to keep the important aspects of your identity even if your particular role changes…An identity can be flexible rather than brittle… The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder is becomes to grow beyond it. “ In my case, “I’m a fashion designer” became “I’m an entrepreneur” is becoming “I buy small/medium businesses in the Fashion and Textile space and manage and grow them.” In the words of investor Paul Graham, “keep your identity small.” If you conflate your identity with what you do, the loss of that thing will send you spiraling. It did for me.

Simple? It’s not. Easy for everyone to understand at a cocktail party- not really. But how are we this quick to surrender our self authorship?! I am guilty of so much of this. Of feeling shame around not having an easy-to-digest answer to “What do you do?.” Of putting aside the glee and freedom of writing a new life path because I get weighed down by how it will play. What people will think. How it will rank in Linkedin keywords.

I’m launching this newsletter to ‘build in public.’ Holding myself accountable. Inviting people who have been scared of spreadsheets, scared of textiles or fashion or looking to own and reimagine the next (or first!) stage of their career to follow along, jive with me, and keep me company.

This is, after all, a lonely industry and company matters.

Did I think I would be here today? OBVIOUSLY YES and also not in a million years. I am both dumbfounded and nonplussed. Having started out in Fashion school and trained at Topshop, Anthropologie. Launched my own brands! Consulted for others. Stepped back to be a mom. Stepped away from momming to amp up my career. Cried. Gave up. Came back. Looked for role models. Decided to be my own. As Dolly Parton puts it; “Find out who you are, and do it on purpose.”

Liv Brands is more than a venture; it’s a culmination of family influences, personal resilience, and the hope that the dots I’ve connected will resonate with you.