The Studio Started as a Storage Closet

When I first walked into the space where I would build my studio, it didn’t feel like a fresh start.

It felt like a bad joke.

The room was crammed to the ceiling — tables stacked on tables, broken chairs leaning at impossible angles, boxes filled with forgotten junk. It wasn’t just cluttered. It was overwhelming.

And the kicker?

This space was in the same building where I had been laid off just months before.

I knew I’d be crossing paths with old co-workers.

I knew I’d be podcasting again, once in a while, for the company that no longer employed me.

Same building. Same hallways.

But now, under completely different terms.

I wasn’t there as an employee anymore.

I was there on my own terms.

And this mess of a room?

It wasn’t a punishment.

It was a beginning.

It didn’t matter how much junk was piled up.

It mattered that for the first time, the door was open, and I was the one who decided what happened next.

Sometimes your new chapter doesn’t look like a new beginning.

Sometimes it looks like a storage closet full of broken chairs.