How do you keep your business going while grieving? with Abi Lee | EP015

The Honest Designer Diaries

In this episode of The Honest Designer Diaries, host Jules interviews brand designer Abby Lee about the profound challenges of maintaining a

Key takeaways

• Abby Lee manages her branding business, Abby Lee Designs, which includes illustration and web design.
• The sudden loss of Abby's father was caused by a rare condition called aortic dissection.

Main topics

• Freelancing and grief
• Managing client expectations

Notable quotes

You've got to be easy on yourself.

Conclusion

The episode provides a moving look at the intersection of personal tra

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Honest Designer Diaries and I'm your host Jules and I know I get guests on here and we talk about different situations and things that have happened to us as part of our career as a graphic designer. In this week's episode I have a very brave Abby coming on. She is a very talented and young brand designer. I adore her work. And she is coming on to discuss a very personal and difficult experience that she has had. Two years ago, she lost her dad suddenly. And she really wanted to come on and talk about how to navigate not only growing your business, but even just keeping the business going while going through a really difficult situation personally and the whole bereavement and grieving journey. So I just want to put this wee caveat on that. Yes, this may be a difficult episode if you're going through something very similar right now. But again, I think it's such a helpful discussion to have because it's something that is very real for a lot of people right now who are going through grieving a loved one in all sorts of different ways and still having to try and focus and keep their business going at the same time. Hi, Abby. I have to say thank you even just for... suggesting coming on to talk about this subject because I know it's not going to be an easy one to talk about and we're going to talk about navigating grief as a freelancer and the impact that has on your business but why don't you just go ahead and say hello about who you are and what you do. Speaker 2 (1:27) Yeah thank you yeah thank you so much for having me on I'm very excited to be here but yeah so I am Abby I am a graphic designer but I've been running Abby Lee Designs which is basically like my branding business for six years now. So I do branding, illustration, web design, a lot of different things. I'm also an Adobe Express ambassador, just like yourself. I know we've met a few times at events and things like that. We have in the airport. Speaker 1 (2:02) I laugh because you and I were both at a point where we have absolutely no energy left. We're both quite introverted. It's taken out of all of us to even get to those days. But we're both at the same energy levels, which is quite nice. It's still kind of how we catch up at the same time, acknowledge that the two of us are both absolutely shattered. It's just, I mean, you and I work from home, so we probably don't come across more than 10 people we talk to face to face to over a week. over those three, four days, we talked to a couple of hundred and then it's just like, that's me filled my cup for six months and then come back into the house again. Totally Speaker 2 (2:37) agree. I mean, I think I was going to mention later on sort of like how freelancing is for some people and it's just not for some people. Like you've got to be, I feel like you've got to be a certain kind of person to enjoy freelancing. And luckily, I definitely am that kind of person. I am more introverted. I'm fine just working from home, doing my own thing. But there's a lot of people that hate that and need to talk to lots of people. And Speaker 1 (3:01) we Speaker 2 (3:02) do have to do that. It's like, whoa. Speaker 1 (3:04) It takes it. It takes it. But you know, I love working from home. I struggled in the office environment because I didn't have that space to just think. And especially once it moved more to open plan. offices and then banks of desks and people walking around all the time because you just walk up to your desk and ask you something and you might be deep in focus if you're especially if you're artworking something or you've got a deadline you take somebody to print and then somebody comes up going hi Speaker 2 (3:34) jules can i just ask you a question and then Speaker 1 (3:36) my head i'm thinking no you cannot ask me a question because you're going to break my train of thought then you have to smile politely and go yes of course what do you want um so we're going to talk about what you've been through recently in the last couple of years with your dad and things and I very much want you to talk about it in your own way without me just like hitting you with a lot of questions so please feel free to just start seeing what happened to you just as much you're comfortable with and then we'll just talk about the impact that had on you and your business and how you've then navigated through that grief journey yeah Speaker 2 (4:11) so Yeah, I wanted to talk about this just because I feel like I've not really, I don't know, I've seen many people speak upon this sort of experience personally of being a freelancer and having to sort of deal with when something in life happens that is like really, really horrible and then you're dealing with grief. Because I think the biggest takeaway for me was just like, as a freelancer, you can't just, you know, you don't get paid time off. Speaker 1 (4:41) which is Speaker 2 (4:42) one of the biggest issues, I feel, with what happened to me is not being able to take that time off and worrying about your business and trying to keep it running whilst going through something not very nice. But yeah, so basically this happened two years ago to me now, but my dad became very, very unwell very suddenly. Like he was completely out of the blue. He was completely... fine before he's fit and healthy so it was a huge shock um and it is something what happened to him is basically called aortic dissection um and not a lot of it's not very common it's quite rare we've never heard of it we were like what even is this what is going on um but it's very serious it's like life-threatening so it happened very suddenly He went straight to the hospital, was in surgery for about 10 hours. Luckily, the surgery was successful in a way. Because it was quite, they said it was very likely that he probably wouldn't survive the surgery. But luckily he did. However, he was then in the ICU for a full month on full life support. He'd never woke up as well. So he was basically in Speaker 1 (6:00) a Speaker 2 (6:00) coma the whole time. So our lives just sort of completely changed overnight from just a very normal, I don't know, I think it was like a Tuesday, like a random Tuesday. I was just working from home and then I got the call and it was just like, what is happening? And then everything changed. And like I said, we were sort of, he was in hospital for a month. So there was this full month of like hospital visits every day, not knowing what was going to happen. how long this is going to go on for, what the outcome would be. But then, yeah, after a month, he did unfortunately pass away. And so then it was, okay, dealing with the grief and everything that comes after that as well. So it was just a huge shock what happened and just completely took us by surprise. It was just, yeah, it was hard to sort of navigate. I think it's hard for everyone anyway, no matter who you are, to navigate this sort of situation when something like this happens to you. But just from my perspective as a freelancer with a business, I was just like, oh God, how do I navigate this? How do I communicate to my clients what's going on? How much do I tell them? How do I Speaker 1 (7:18) sort Speaker 2 (7:19) of, you know? Because half the time I didn't really know what was happening, how long this could go on for, like what do I tell them? Will they mind? Luckily, I have very nice clients and I did tell them. I think it is important to tell them, listen, this is happening. So yeah, I might not be able to get this piece of work over to you Speaker 1 (7:45) like Speaker 2 (7:46) I originally said that I would. um but luckily they were all very very nice about it um which i think is another reason why it's so important to attract clients that you know i like good good vibes like you're sort of people like i'm very lucky i work with lots of really incredible people lots of business owners and women who are just really lovely people because they sort of attract that kind of client base so luckily they were all very nice and totally fine with you know things being delayed but you know there's as a business owner I like things to be very on time and sort of stick to the schedule because I'm sure you know as you book things in if something overruns it affects it impacts everything it impacts everything on Speaker 1 (8:37) your calendar so it's hard to Speaker 2 (8:40) just be like oh I'll just take you know a week or so off because no that work isn't getting done there's no one else to to do to sort something out for you no one else to send those emails do that little bit of client work to get it over it's everything is just me because it's just me in the business so taking that time off it was like well everything's going to be impacted and it was just really like hard to try and navigate that and how how am I going to do this because like my family for example they were all able to get time off through whilst it was ill and compassionate leave because of their jobs and that's just like one of the benefits of sort of doing a nine-to-five you know there's there's pros and cons to freelancing there's pros and cons to like a nine to five sort of job yes um and I feel like this I've never really thought about it before as well I feel like apart from when you're like ill yourself yes I'm sure we've all experienced that when you you start to feel unwell and you're like oh no how long is this gonna last like how long am I gonna be sick for where I feel like I can't do any work or you're like really sick but you're still in bed and you're like oh yeah so it's you know it's similar to that but it's something else that's happening that's out like out of your control and you don't know what's going on and yeah it was just navigating that which was like really quite difficult Speaker 1 (10:09) You're also navigating something that's never happened to you before. It's different from being ill. And as you say, everything stops. So nothing's getting done. Speaker 1 (10:21) then you you you know subconsciously I've got to go back to that at some point that's sitting there waiting for me and how how did you cope or manage just the the overall heaviness of how you're feeling at the time to then face up to having to just sit down and get on with the everyday stuff that is it's like when the death happens life still continues which is a really weird place to be yeah Speaker 2 (10:47) um Speaker 1 (10:48) an experience like this these really small things that are so insignificant you're like why am I even doing this but at the same time you have to because it's life but your headspace is in a completely different place so how did you like cope I suppose yeah Speaker 2 (11:07) yeah this is the thing because it's like I was like, well, I could just, you know, take a few weeks off. But you just know in the back of your mind that all