Making it

I have always felt that when I make it, when I’m standing on a stage accepting some kind of award, when I’m sitting at the top of the best-seller list, when I’m walking into a room to meet BTS, that I’ll have done it alone. I sometimes try to look into the future and cast the people in my life in major roles. I ask myself “am I stepping out of that meeting because I’ve had a call from them?” or “are they there when I get home from signing a major deal?” or “are we signing a major deal together?”. I think a part of me is constantly assessing where I am, taking stock of my relationships and connections. Through that I think I’m trying to deduce when it’s going to happen, the thing, the moment, the opportunity, the time I know I’ll have started to “make it”. Whenever someone new comes into my life I get excited, because I can see how they fit into the broader picture of my future success. I can see how I can share it all with them. 

I find it interesting that only children are written off as spoiled and unable to share. The very nature of my upbringing of relative solitude means I have always looked to others to form connections, understand who I am and most of all, share my life, my passions, and my love. Loneliness was my best friend, alone time was how I recharged my batteries, books were an extension of my consciousness. None of this was sad or inherently negative. This was, and remains to be, my reality. Yet when it came to business, the last thing I wanted to do was go it alone. Business to me has always been about collaboration, connection, and community. Business to me has, from a young age, been an important part of how I saw myself in the world. I started my first business in 2011 and in the past 11 years have founded over seven. My longest job has been for myself. I didn’t study business, nor did I ever show an interest in it. Yet as I sit here taking stock of my 20s that has been the most defining part. I was the queen of an idea and a start-up. As my mum always said, I could make anything run off the fumes of an oily rag. Starting a publishing company was no different, really. Though this time, I wanted it to be the venture that lasts.

As a child, there weren’t any particular influences that put me on the entrepreneurial path. Some people have parents or close family members in business, others might feel the spark from running their local lemonade stand… me, well, I think my parents did influence my journey. Just not in an expected way. 

My mother was a social work academic and my father was a musician and visual artist. My earliest memories of my mum are of her sitting at her desk writing her Ph.D. and of her teaching in lecture theaters that I would frequent by means of after-school care. As a single parent, she had no choice but to go above and beyond to establish a career that would keep both her and me economically secure. I remember when GST was introduced in 1998 because my mum cried–more costs were piled on to our single-income household. I was five years old and was starting to understand the burden of adulthood. I soon became acutely aware of money and observed the disparities between students in my public school classroom. Not that I was ever, not for one single moment, without anything my heart desired. I just noticed it and stored my observations away for future reference.

When I spent time with my dad we would play. We would dress up, we would play make-believe, and we would play space invaders on the computer. We would visit his artist friends, go to gallery openings, we would draw and paint and make music. My dad, for the vast majority of my life, was unable to hold down work for a great length of time. If he did, it would make him miserable. Understandably, he was an artist after all. 

As the years went on I watched as my mum worked tirelessly into the night and made sacrifice after sacrifice for her career. I saw how she was trapped in the system. She couldn’t stop, not for one moment, because she had to keep us afloat. What I decided early on was that there was no way in hell I wanted to work as hard as my mum for so little in return… and there was no way in hell I wanted to forever be a struggling artist like my dad. I had to find a balance between survival and expression. Then, from there, I could concern myself with my main goal: Thriving. 

Not only did my parents influence me by showing me what I didn’t want, but they gave me an invaluable gift, each in their own way. Whatever it is I wanted, they showed me that I could create it for myself. Intellectually, creatively, and eventually, economically. I was able to express myself in whatever manner I wished, they both gave me the tools and means to do it. By the time I was a teenager I was beginning to understand that I didn’t need money to pull off my big ideas… I could do it through sheer willpower and necessary upskilling. I was constantly encouraged to think outside the box. 

The issue that I faced in school and later after I left and tried to adult in the real world was that what I wanted to do didn’t fit the norm. There was no pathway for what I wanted to do, there was no school to teach me how to be a multidimensional artist. I wasn’t talented at music or visual art, I refused to write the way school wanted me to, and I wasn’t able to pigeonhole any of my work to be readily understood and accepted as art. What I was trying to understand and explain for a long time was that I was the art. But where’s the university-to-workplace pipeline for that?

Well, the trick was that I had to do what my parents taught me: I had to go out there and do it myself. Not just become the artist, but create a viable economic support system around me, too. This is how I started using businesses as a means to build a world for myself where all of my dreams could come true.

All of this is not to say that I was dreaming and scheming businesses from a young age. I believe for the longest time all of these thoughts were too abstract for me. The existential-style growing pains I later experienced were in large part due to my inability to give language–and from there, a set of actions heavily rooted in reality–for what I was conceptualising. Even when my conceptual thinking kicked in it remained inconsistent and ambiguous for a long time. I saw all my different passions, interests, and abilities as separate entities. Even into my mid-20s I struggled with knowing which one to make my main squeeze–is it writing or is it my desire to own a store or is it my penchant for academics? To pursue my love of writing held a world of risk and I truly had no idea how to start. To pursue academics was far too rigid for me. To go into business, however, could potentially give me the freedom to write and be a scholar. Through business, I could maybe… just maybe… have it all.

I know this might sound cringe, but I can actually pinpoint the exact moment I started thinking conceptually. The moment I really started using my brain in the way I am able to every day as an adult. The moment I started really becoming me. It was 2008, I was 14 (and-a-half), and my mum and I were driving across the Nullarbor, a stretch of remote highway spanning 1675kms between Western Australia and Ceduna, South Australia. This was the first time in my life I had left the built environment. This was the first time I saw trees and desert without end. I had the strangest feeling come over me where I could feel my brain expand outwards. As if I were one with the environment around me, and the small town I grew up in had been squishing my thoughts to conformity my entire life. As I spent my days staring out the window I reflected on the failings of my education. How I dearly wanted to go to a creative arts school. How no such school that I truly wanted to attend existed. Well, I thought to myself, how would you do it differently? With the desert as my companion, I set about planning a curriculum for my very own school. 

I wanted students to have more autonomy, I wanted students to be able to have options as to how they were assessed. I wanted to throw the notion of assessment out the window entirely, but I figured it was important if the school were to be recognised as legitimate by the government. So I planned ways around it. Then, I set about figuring out how to structure payments on a sliding scale. Where students’ families would pay in accordance with their income. The mega-rich would pay twice as much to support a fully funded place for a student experiencing economic hardship. Something that I got really hung up on, which has remained a habit of mine ever since, was the name. The school had to have a good name. Moreso, it had to have a name that came from my ultimate source of inspiration. At that time it was my favourite band, The Used. So I poured over their lyrics, trying to find a name for my school. It was painfully important to me that the name came from them. After much listening and frenzied googling on my Nokia, I settled on a name: Wax Butterflies. 

Three years later, it’s 2011 and I’m soon to be 18. I had dropped out of high school and found full-time work at my local donut store. I was still torn in many directions, namely between academics–I had started and promptly abandoned a qualification in mental health studies–and creative pursuits. However, now entering my 18th year, I was faced with another dilemma: I had to make money. I decided to try and pursue a specific career path that was creative and faintly held the promise of a reliable income: film. Before too long, I found myself walking onto the campus of a technical college to get a diploma in screen and new media. I discovered my passion for filmmaking while in high school. I realised it sat at the convergence of many paths for me. I could write, I could use it as a form of visual poetry, I could be an activist, I could explore my identity… everything that I was interested in tied in seamlessly with film. Most of all, I hoped it would give me an in to the music world. I wanted to make music videos. I wanted to make films. I wanted it all. 

During my brief inquiry into the world of film, I met someone. Someone who took me on adventures, who had their license and a car, who for all intents and purposes was very much a music nerd. I suddenly found myself in an entirely new world. My friends were now musicians, my weekends were spent at gigs and parties. This someone would pick me up and take me to school and we would spend our days playing with cameras and talking about our dreams. We shared three main passions: music, film, and art. One day I had an idea for a business, something that would combine all our passions and utilise his impressive network of musicians and artists. I proposed to him that we put on concerts with music and film and art in one sort of experimental exhibition, for lack of a better word. He was enthused and quickly agreed. Once again, I went in search of a name, this time coming from my new favourite band, Enter Shikari. After much deliberation, we chose Labyrinth and added our own twist. I was adamant that we should not have a business name that explicitly said what we were doing so that we wouldn’t be restricted to one thing in particular. With his profuse agreement, Labyrinth Arts was born. 

This was where I started to learn that business ventures were my love language. What I truly desired was someone who would dream with me, and put in the work to anchor the dream to reality. I wanted to share my ideas, I wanted to share my business, and I wanted to use it as a vehicle to carry me and my beloved wherever we wished to go in life. For once, I was not alone. Someone was dreaming with me, someone was helping the dream become reality. Many months later we launched our business and I experienced my first adult-sized rupture. He didn’t feel the same way about me. Before too long my world was falling apart and I was without a business, my best friend, and the networks we had built together. 

A few months later in a feat of sheer determination, I curated my first gallery exhibition. I had no real idea what I was doing, but I made it up as I went along. It was a success, and best of all, I did it all under my name: Wallea Eaglehawk. But, just like my venture into film, I soon lost heart for it with no support or friends to collaborate with. 

As I went into my 20s I studied creative writing, then got a degree in sociology. I wrote a popular blog called Nambouring and slowly amassed a following online. I met another someone and we started many ventures together: A clothing store, a zine, a coffee cart, a tea house, a cafe, and deli. Throughout the years 2014-2018 I worked for my local council as a curator for a youth street art project, did digital placemaking, and worked on a number of community projects to varying degrees of success. I had started to write many books, but never finished any. 

At the end of 2018, I fell madly in love with Kdramas and promptly began watching as many as I could. They reignited my passion for filmmaking and introduced me to a country I had never given much thought to, South Korea. Around this time I was watching a show called What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? When my then-partner pointed to a character on the screen and remarked “hey look, it’s Korea Wallea”. Over time this became a name I used jokingly to describe who I wanted to be. Over time the joking subsided and I became serious in my pursuit of my dreams. At the start of 2019, I realised that I had become sidetracked opening businesses with my partner and had not become the successful writer-slash-creative I always desired. I had a new vision for how I would achieve what I wanted, it involved moving to South Korea and writing. But before that, I had to become Korea Wallea. Which, by the way, is not some Oli London-esque quest to become “transracial”, the goal wasn’t to become Korean. Rather, the goal was to become the Wallea I saw living her creative dreams in Korea. With that in mind, I sold my business and went in pursuit of becoming a published author. 

A year on from watching WWWSK? and I was back on the couch, this time with the whole gang. My partner and my mum sat on either side of me while we binged Romance is a Bonus Book, a Kdrama revolving around a publishing house. I was halfway through writing my first book, Idol Limerence, and found it odd timing that I was querying publishers while watching a show that romanticised the industry. Both mum and my partner would often turn to me and say “that’s what you should be doing”, which soon turned into long conversations about how realising one of my lifelong dreams of opening a publishing house would be great. Yet at the same time, it seemed like a distant reality to me. Something I’d do when I was more established.

Just like WWWSK?, Romance is a Bonus Book permeated my every waking moment and started to merge with my vision of Korea Wallea. Does Korea Wallea own a book publishing company? I asked myself. To which the answer soon became: yes, yes she does. But once again, before anything could truly begin, I was in need of the right name. This time, I turned to the be-all and end-all of musicians that shaped my life: BTS. 

One of the first things that really sent me down a delightful rabbit hole of exploration with BTS was RM’s Intro: Persona. Released in late March 2019, the song represented a seismic shift in my life. It’s the song that I wrote Idol Limerence in response to. It’s the song that started it all, truly. Around this time, a vlog was uploaded from 2018 where RM was talking about wanting to change the world in two ways: first by seeing everything positively, and second by being a revolutionary. I found the concept of revolutionary to be quite interesting. I took the word and carried it with me as a lens by which to view BTS, and through them, myself. As I began to form my book I used this lens more and more to develop my understanding of their mass social power. My conclusion is that the most revolutionary thing we can do is love ourselves. BTS are revolutionary, because of their ‘love yourself’ message that they transmit far and wide. We get to see firsthand their experiences of self-love and self-hate… especially through listening to what RM has to say on the matter. Through this, through their music and their message, an entire ARMY heeds the call to learn to love themselves, little by little, every day. If that isn’t positive social change, a self-love revolution, then I don’t know what is.

While I carried this word around I quickly realised that what I was interested in exploring was revolutionary phenomena. Particularly of the cultural and music kind. I wanted to write about people making positive changes in their lives, their communities, their countries, and beyond. Big or small. I wanted the macro and the micro. I enjoyed the powerful reappropriation of the word to stand for non-violence, justice, and love. I realised that this was what I wanted to be known for. This is who I wanted to be. This is what I wanted to show the world. This is what I named my company: Revolutionaries. 

Further to this, I wanted this to represent my own personal revolution. From the 14 (and-a-half) year-old dreaming of a creative arts school to the 18-year-old launching an arts company with her film school crush, to the 25-year-old selling her deli to become a published author, to the Korea Wallea I’m still becoming four years later. Every single interest, passion, project, and pursuit led me to create this company. Every business, project, and book I had created prior to 2020 stopped in its tracks. I’d never followed something through to the “success” stage. I felt like I was dwarfed by the number of false starts I’d had. I wasn’t going to let Revolutionaries be one of them. For the first time in my life, I was going to make it.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day. She suggested I remove “I want to make it as an author” from a TikTok voiceover I was doing. She said I’ve already made it. I can appreciate that from the outside looking in, I’ve definitely made it somewhere. But to me, I’m not quite there yet. You see, making it to me means that I’ve progressed past the start-up phase of my company and have established myself. I can pay myself for my work, I can pay a team of employees, and I can build a secure base to create from. When I say make it, I mean that I want to get to a stable starting point from which everything else I want to do can spring forth. That will be my first “making it”, my second will be working with BTS. They’re at different levels, and they’re not my only goals, but that’s what I have my sights on right now.

Since founding Revolutionaries in 2020 it feels as if the setbacks have amplified. Of course, I do believe this happens when one truly goes for it. The stakes have never been higher, so the risks undoubtedly must be greater, too. My desire to build a company with others has seen me go through three teams in varying shapes and forms. Each with their own unique learning curve. Each time they left, I felt like my world was crumbling. Because in attempting to build the company with them, I gave away too much of my power. In 2021 I bid farewell to my third team and decided to downsize to better focus on healing my chronic illness. It was through this process that I truly learnt how to do everything in my business. An invaluable experience, most definitely. Because it showed me that despite wanting to share my company with others, to build something perhaps more communally, it was not what was destined for me.

This year I was faced with a proposition. To take on an investor. Someone who was bright and incredibly talented. Someone who had a wealth of knowledge and experience that wanted to help me grow my business. After much consideration, I agreed, and we set to work. This time though, it was different. The dynamic was different. She wasn’t an employee that I was sharing with, but an equal. For the first time in a long time, I was optimistic about the future of Revolutionaries. 

When I shared my big 2023 goal and subsequent strategy with her where I outlined my intent to write a book with BTS, she was beyond thrilled. Last week, we met and spent a few hours putting together a plan for the next six months of the company. At last, no more false starts. I had a business partner, I had cash flow, and I had a goal, a plan, and a strategy. 

That is, until yesterday when she called to say she urgently had to consolidate. She could no longer be a part of Revolutionaries. We meet again next week to discuss how I will repay her investment. 

Just like that, another false start. But this time, the value was immediately evident. You see, every time I had experienced a false start, a setback, before, I felt my world crumble around me… even ever so slightly. When my team no longer worked for me, I had to rush to fill the gaps with my own limited skills. When I took a step back due to my health, my identity shuddered and shook until I was unclear as to who I was. This time, despite being very sad to lose such a wonderful business partner, I was not devastated. There was no rupture. Rather, I could see it for what it was. The end of a chapter. A full circle moment. I no longer needed the level of support my business partner was providing. This was her sentiment exactly during our call–I’ve got everything I need now.

When I say that when I make it I’ll have done it alone, that isn’t to discredit every person that has helped me on my journey. Nor does it mean to say that I won’t have anyone in my immediate circle when I reach the “making it” stage. Rather, I’m reflecting on the pattern that emerges time and again. I am being pushed towards doing this alone, as opposed to being a part of a team. I might have a team, sure. But I won’t be one of many that are accepting the proverbial accolade. Though I’m still hopeful that I might find my people that I can share my businesses and success with in the future. Right now, that is not what is in store for me.

Right now, the path is clear and my big 2023 goal looms ahead. With the prospect of paying back my former business partner’s investment, and the loss of cash flow that comes with her departure, the stakes are higher now than they have ever been. It’s do or die, and I don’t say that lightly. I don’t want to turn 30 experiencing another false start. Hard work, disappointment, and hurdles… these are inevitable and I welcome them as part of my journey. False starts, however, are so 2022. And that’s exactly where they can stay.