🧗🏻♀️ The Struggle is Sacred, Part One
Guest post by Brooke Siem of Happiness is a Skill
Dearest Doh Readers: I am delighted to bring you a two-part guest post this week from , without whom this Substack would not exist!
When we met for brunch the Sunday after I got The News from my Favorite (Former) Client, she helped me muster the courage to start on Substack and brainstorm punny breadwinner-related names alongside our respective ChatGPTs. It was Brooke who suggested Rolling in “Doh” instead of Dough, the best part of the title :).
Brooke is the author of May Cause Side Effects: A Memoir, a two-time Pivot podcast guest,1 and publishes the newsletter
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“I want you to know,” the Very Famous Athlete said to me over FaceTime, “that I don’t want to work with anyone else. You have blown my mind with the quality of your cooking, and I wish I’d found you earlier in my career.”
I smiled, said thank you, and prepared for what I knew what was coming next.
“But we need to pause our work together. It’s not fair for me to keep you on the hook, in case I don’t pick up another contract and decide to retire.”
Welcome to the flip side to working as a private chef for pro athletes.
Because of the bespoke, white-glove nature of the work, I only take one to two clients at a time. This is all well and good when they’re employed, but professional sports are fickle, and injuries aren’t scheduled. If a client loses a contract or sustains a career-ending injury, I’m also out of a job.
This is exactly what happened in October of 2023, after X (née Twitter) informed me that my primary, long-standing client was released from his contract and would enter free agency. He and I didn’t have a contract.
In elite sports, reputation and trust is the contract. As soon as I saw the tweet, I figured this was coming and reminded myself that this is exactly why I kept a savings account. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being launched off a warm boat and into frigid waters.
In one conversation, ninety-five percent of my income evaporated.
When I’m asked what I do for a living, I can’t ever give a clear answer.
Sure, I went to culinary school and have worked in every aspect of the food industry—from Michelin-starred kitchens to my own brick-and-mortar to private work for athletes—but I also wrote an award-winning memoir on psychiatric drug withdrawal, maintain a handful of side hustles including manuscript editing, oil painting, and an Etsy store specializing in The Fuckit Bucket™ for depositing all of life’s dilemmas.2
As every non-famous person who’s ever written a book knows, books are not the path to wealth. That endeavor has taken more money from me than it will ever pay back, and I consider my work around it as volunteer work.
Thus, I cook.
When I got off the call with my athlete, I banged my head on my desk, trying to push out intrusive thoughts of taking a job at Starbucks to make ends meet.
There is a paradox in this work I have not yet figured out how to solve: Even though I was working intimately with one of the biggest names in sports, I can’t advertise my work with him because of his desire to keep things private. And because his goal is to keep playing, he’s not going to refer me to a competitor. So I’m stuck without the ability to leverage the name or introductions.
I recently explained all this to a financial astrologist, focusing on the perennial pattern where I either work my ass off for a pittance (books) or get thousands of dollars thrown at me for a few hours of work (cooking), but can’t seem to figure out how to keep the money and opportunity flowing more evenly.
Either the crops get rain or pestilence wipes them all out. It’s never comfortable or predictable, leading to exhausting flexibility, constant pivots, and a general inability to plan more than three months ahead.
My astromancer’s response? Get used to it because it’s never going anywhere.
She explained that the struggle itself is my sacred path. For me, it will always be like this so I can learn to trust that I will always have enough to live, day in and day out, in the way that I want.
For me, that means the flexibility to work from home (or prep at home, in the case of cooking), determine my own schedule, and be known enough for my work that paying opportunities arrive organically.
Trust sounds good, but the problem is today I only have $3.12 in my checking account.
🤷🏻♀️
Continue reading Part Two:
🪣 Read more about the origin story behind The Fuckit Bucket on Brooke’s blog:
“After so many years of depression, I am basking in the fact that I can find so much joy in creating a silly little bucket. This is why we do the work. Because when we clear out all the emotional crap, we make room for creation and laughter to come in, which results in both art and delight!”
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Jenny — Ever since you introduced me to the magic of the 'fuckit bucket', it's been a go-to gift for friends. Spreading the joy of worry-free living one bucket at a time! Well done Brooke!
Also -- this comment could not be more spot on! “As every non-famous person who’s ever written a book knows, books are not the path to wealth. That endeavor has taken more money from me than it will ever pay back, and I consider my work around it as volunteer work.”