I Got Laid Off in 2017. It Turned Out to Be the Best Thing That Ever Happened to My Business.

Voyage Dallas recently asked me to tell my story. Sitting down to answer their questions, I realized the version most people see- the author and speaker and coach with a community of notaries across the country- skips the messy middle that actually made all of it possible.

So here's the whole thing. Including the parts that don't fit neatly on a highlight reel.

The stamp I ignored for four years

I became a Texas notary back in 2013, and not because I had some entrepreneurial vision. My employer in the mortgage industry asked me to get commissioned so I could notarize company documents. That's it. For four years, that stamp sat in a drawer between uses, and I never once thought of it as a business. I barely thought of it at all.

Then in 2017 I got laid off.

If you've been there, you know the specific flavor of that gut-punch. One day you have a title and a paycheck and a plan, and the next you're staring at a crossroads with two options: go crawl back to corporate America, or bet on yourself with no guaranteed paycheck, no benefits, and no roadmap.

Here's the part I couldn't see at the time. In my mortgage years, I had hired mobile notaries constantly, and I kept thinking the same thing every time: this service could be delivered so much better. More professional, more communicative, more human. When I suddenly found myself unemployed, it hit me that the business I'd been quietly critiquing for years was already sitting in my hands.

So I didn't go back to corporate. I built the thing I wished existed.

The first networking event I ever hosted in 2018.

The lesson nobody teaches new notaries

Here's what I figured out fast, and what I've now watched play out with thousands of notaries: almost nobody is stuck because they don't know how to notarize. You learn that in a week. The thing that actually determines whether you build a real business is whether you know how to market yourself, build relationships, and get remembered and referred.

Nobody teaches that part. So I taught myself. I studied networking, relationship marketing, and referral development, and I tested every bit of it in my own business first, keeping what worked and throwing out what didn't. That messy trial-and-error eventually became the 5 Point Marketing System, which is just a fancy name for "the map I wish someone had handed me in 2017 so I could have skipped a few years of guessing."

The part I don't usually lead with because it's not all business all the time

I could stop there and let this be a tidy success story. But that would be a lie of omission, and you deserve better.

In 2022, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and an autoimmune disease (and covid, and all at the same time). It would have been easy to accept that as my new normal. Instead I got stubborn, made significant lifestyle changes, and reversed the diabetes. That experience hammered home something I now say constantly: your circumstances don't define you. Your response to them does.

Then there's the book. On The Move took me five years to write. Five. Not because the words were hard, but because I spent most of that time arguing with a voice in my head that insisted I wasn't qualified and nobody would read it. I'm a grown woman who had already built a business from a layoff and a stamp, and I still let imposter syndrome run the show for half a decade.

I've also spent years doing quieter work, healing from things I carried out of childhood, setting boundaries, and learning that my worth is not up for a vote. And I've learned that the more visible you become, the more people will happily tell you they disagree with you.

Criticism, it turns out, comes standard with leadership.

I'm telling you all of this because I think the highlight reels do real damage. They make it look like successful people are a different species who never doubt themselves. They're not. They just learned the one thing that changes everything: confidence isn't something you're born with. You build it by taking action before you feel ready, and then letting the evidence pile up.

An early marketing piece for Marketing4Notaries (formerly Signing Agent Marketing)

What I built for the notary who's where I was

Everything I do now grew out of that stretch of not feeling ready and moving anyway.

Marketing4Notaries is the training and community I wish I'd had. It's where I teach the 5 Point Marketing System and where a room full of notaries who actually get it cheer each other on, swap what's working, and remind each other they're closer than they think. I also host Tuesday Notary Titans, one of the longest-running free coaching calls in this industry, alongside my partner in crime Laura Biewer. And Laura and I co-founded the Certified Notary Trust Delivery Agent program to help notaries move into estate planning work with real professionalism.

Somewhere along the way, the system got effective enough that people in other industries started asking to learn it too. That's flattering, and it's coming. But notaries will always be home base. You're the ones who built this with me.

We're halfway through the year. What are you waiting for?

If you're reading this in the back half of July, doing the mental math on where this year has gone, I want to gently point something out. The notaries who will look back on this year proud of what they built are not the ones who felt ready. They're the ones who took the next step anyway.

So take it.

Come to Tuesday Notary Titans every Tuesday afternoon at 12:15pm Pacific/2:15pm Central/3:15pm Eastern. It's free, every week, no pitch. Just come get a feel for the room and bring your real questions. You can register for a free reminder email here: Marketing4Notaries.com/TNT

And when you're done waiting to feel ready, join us inside Marketing4Notaries for $24 a month or 199 dollars a year at Skool.com/Marketing4Notaries. If you'd rather start with the book, On The Move is on Amazon for $24.99, and it will teach you how to build a business people remember, trust, and refer.

My layoff turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my business, but only because I finally bet on myself. Your version of that bet is sitting right in front of you.

You don't have to feel ready. You just have to take the next step.

I'll see you inside.

⭐️ Read the Voyage Dallas article here!