When I was a CEO

In my twenties, I co-founded a graphic design studio with my then husband. Two kids in tow we hustled like the milk was burning. One of our typeface designs took off. I’ve seen it used in places like India, Romania, Italy, to name a few. Storefronts, magazines, ads. Big companies such as Disney and Mcdonald’s used it. Yeah, it blew up.

A few years later the ex and I went our separate ways. He got the company and I got the kids.

Here I am dreamingly reminiscing over the times I used to be a young hot CEO – drumroll and bah bah bah…. Akshually, there’s a moral to the story and it’s that one day you’re part of something, someone, going somewhere seemingly important, and the next day you’re lost. And that’s ok.

Anyone can be a CEO on paper. Anybody can start a company. It’s running it that takes skill. We run ours as badly as is expected from two first timers. However, the real value of starting a company, is just that; Starting! Success makes you feel great and mistakes makes you feel like a fool on display. 

It’s easier to get social cookie points with success, hotness, riches, and smarts. Yes surely. How about happiness? It depends, how deep do you want to go? Maybe your life has more to it than you knew? Maybe you need to trust yourself enough to test your strengths ? Let go of things you thought were good for you? Let yourself feel the dread of the unknown.

You’re not a bundle of messed up dreams, but a glorious container of potential and experiences? Success, failure, happiness, adversity…  Who decides what it means? For you? Life is a journey and all that you are, all that happens to you, all that you learn will benefit yourself in some surprising way if you let it. 

Both of us went on to build our separate careers. Having jumped into the unknown, by starting a company with very little money and  much optimism, built my confidence in starting my day spa some years later.