The Cost of Playing by the Rules: Why I Stopped Trying to Fix Systems from Within

I walked into a local Louisiana bank to open a corporate account—one of those cold (literally, why is the AC set so low?), nondescript conference rooms with drop ceilings and too many pens. Two lovely bankers joined me, seated across from me at the glossy wooden conference table.

They asked what the business did, and I gave the cleanest, most strategic answer I could. Because 1) some of it’s still under wraps and 2) disruption makes certain institutions nervous—and the business I was there to represent is, frankly, built to disrupt. So, I said something about tech. Something about systems. Something about infrastructure. Something about AI being inevitable.

They nodded politely, but I could feel the suspicion underneath. Not hostility exactly—just confusion. Like the polite smile you give when someone breaks a rule you didn’t know was breakable. 

Because what I was describing was the antithesis of traditional banking. Especially in Louisiana—where banks weren’t just shaped by plantation economics… they were built on them.

In the 1800s, enslaved people and plantation land were used as collateral. Some of the earliest banks in this region functioned as clearinghouses for that economy—converting stolen labor into institutional wealth.

This system was never designed to decentralize power.
It was designed to manage risk through control.

So no wonder my vague gestures toward redistribution—of data, identity, agency—felt potentially threatening. Not to the people in the room. Again, they seemed lovely. Genuinely curious, even.

But I could tell the subtext of their questions was about compliance.

Do we fit the mold? Do we follow the rules? Will we behave like the institutions they’re used to?

And part of what this particular business is building stands in direct contrast to what those buildings were designed to protect.

To be clear, I know the banking world intimately. Ten years ago, I was the Treasury Management Officer sitting on the other side of the table. I know how to fill out the forms, ask the right questions, cite the right regulations. I know how to play the part. I even dressed for it—pink silk shirt, straight from the dry cleaner bag it had been sitting in since 2022.

And for a moment—honestly?—it felt like a relief. For all the ways I’ve left behind the systems I no longer believe in, I still know how to survive inside them. I know how to be the person who can translate chaos into compliance and check all the right boxes. And admittedly, there’s a weird kind of comfort in that—maybe even a little thrill to getting approval—especially when the alternative is building something that doesn’t exist yet.

Even though I’ve spent the last few years helping people divest from extractive systems, I forgot how comforting those systems can feel when you’re fluent in their language.

That fluency can trick you into thinking you’re safe. That mastery means belonging. That if you’re good at it, maybe it’s not so bad. Or maybe you can fix it.

But knowing how to survive isn’t the same thing as being free.

And once I really let myself feel that gap—between the systems I’d internalized and the future I actually wanted to build—I got angry.

And actually, for the first six months of this year, I was angry.

Not in the meme-able “burn it down” way, but in the full-body grief kind of a way.

I was grieving the systems I had propped up. The affiliations I thought I could reform from within. The institutions I tried so hard to change, only to realize I was never going to change them.

Eventually, I had to divest. Not just exist. Not just pivot. Divest.

To pull back my energy, my name, my labor, and my willingness to make something work that wasn’t designed to work for me.

And then, almost by accident, I found myself helping build something completely new. A tech company. One I can’t name just yet, but one that’s asking questions most platforms are too afraid—or too invested—to ask.

We’re not just rethinking infrastructure. We’re asking what it means to return data, identity, and agency back to the people they were taken from. Not in theory, but in practice.

Which sounds bold. Sexy even? 

But what it mostly feels like is… deeply uncomfortable.

Because when you’re building something that’s never existed, there are no instructions. No models. No bankable success stories.

There’s just your gut. And the just-as-you’re-drifting-off-to-sleep fear that you’re getting it wrong.

Every time I sit down to make decisions without a roadmap, I have to double check:

Am I creating something that disrupts extraction—or just replicating it with better branding?

(Even the most functional systems are often built to extract.)

There’s no script for this part and no proof we’re doing it “right.” What there is is the very title of this newsletter—This Isn’t Working (the old way)—and a commitment not to rebuild the same system in a different font. Not a serif. Not a sans serif. Not comic sans. 

And I don’t really think I was prepared for the grief and anger that was going to come along with walking away from what I was good at.

Because I was like… really really good at compliance.
I was good at making things legible, fundable, and efficient. I was rewarded for it. Respected for it. Trusted because of it.

So when I find myself struggling to articulate this new thing—this murky, emergent, slightly unhinged future we’re building—it’s easy to wonder if I’ve lost something. If maybe I was better off when the rules were clear. 

I certainly had a more reliable paycheck. 

But even that in itself was limiting. And the truth is, I’m not building this for my personal paycheck anyway.

So that’s where I have to catch myself.

Instead of trying to push through the discomfort, what I really needed was to name it; instead of gaslighting my own grief, minimizing the cost of extraction, and pretending like the rupture didn’t hurt.

So then I sat with this question: How do you move through workplace trauma that’s lingering in your nervous system and resurfacing in a new season of leadership to ensure you don’t perpetuate it?

I was reminded of a tool I developed during my foundations training with the Institute for Equity Centered Coaching. A framework I created when I couldn’t find a clear answer to this question:

How do you affirm someone’s resilience without minimizing their trauma or turning strength into a weapon?

It’s called the P.A.U.S.E. Framework—and while I created it to remind myself of states of being for the coaching and facilitation work I do with others, I hold it up for reflection for myself, too.

Here’s the short version:

• P — Power & Privilege Scan: Ask what structures helped you survive that may not apply to someone else.

• A — Acknowledge the Harm: Say “That was real.” Don’t skip to the silver lining.

• U — Use Questions, Not Prescriptions: Ask: What kind of support would feel good right now?

• S — Strengths WITH Boundaries: Say: “You’re strong—and you shouldn’t have had to be.”

• E — Evidence of Shared Evolution: Say what you’re still learning. Stay human.

The “S” is the one I’ve been sitting with most lately.

Just because I was strong enough to survive that system doesn’t mean I have to keep surviving. I get to build something else. I get to rest. I get to grieve what that old strength cost me. And, I think most importantly to remind myself of today: I get to let it go.

So when the doubt creeps in… ask:

What if the discomfort isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong—but a sign you’re no longer betraying yourself to stay safe?

What if strength doesn’t always mean pushing through?

What if we stopped calling this uncertainty… and started naming it emergence?

If you’re in this space too—between what you left and what you’re making—know this:

You’re not the problem.
The system was.
But you still might miss the system you knew so well sometimes.
That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you honest.

It’s tempting, in that in-between, to slip back into old roles. To over-explain. To make it legible. To appease the voice in your head (or the banker across the table) who just wants to know what box this fits in.

But that’s the whole point: it doesn’t.
We’re not here to check a box.
We’re here to build a different future.

One where infrastructure serves identity—not the other way around.
One where the rules aren’t rigged toward predictability over humanity.
One where “proof” isn’t required to act with integrity.
One where people don’t have to contort themselves into systems that were never meant for them.

If you’ve been in the hallway between the old and the not-yet—
If you’ve found yourself missing the comfort of the system you chose to leave—
If you’ve sat across from someone and felt like you had to shrink your idea to make it legible—

I just want to say: same. 

And I want to ask one more question:

What’s one rule, system, or structure you used to find comfort in—even though it didn’t (or doesn’t) serve you?

xo,

Brittany