Like many entrepreneurs, I became a business owner by accident. I was raised in the church; my father was a preacher and my mother a housewife. Piano was my first love so when it came time to go to college, that is what I pursued. I didn’t think about a career because that was not my model.
But things worked out differently than I’d planned, as things usually do. A couple marriages and two children later I was in my mid-thirties, working my way up through administrative jobs to middle management at various companies. All while trying to reconcile the fact that I wasn’t doing what I thought was my calling — focusing on my family.
Toward the end of my second marriage, after a layoff gave me six-month’s severance, I had the first space of time since my teens where I didn’t have to work five days a week. I was ecstatic, for a day. Then I was panicked about the future. Then I was frustrated because I felt so unproductive. Three o'clock is way too early for kids to come home from school. It was only a few weeks before a recruiter landed me the job that changed my life.
CitySearch.com was my first experience with a startup. I loved the pace, the young team and the fact that I learned something every day. The internet was young too and that was exciting. The first three years were non-stop. My kids were growing as my marriage was dying, and focusing on something positive got me through it.
Internet companies either matured early or died quickly in those days. After three years, CitySearch was at a turning point and it was time for me to move on. This was early 2000 and the first dot com bust was happening. It wasn’t hard for me to find a job, but it was hard to keep one. They disappeared overnight. For the first time I had a period of instability in my career, going through four jobs in two years. At each one, however, I learned valuable lessons about how to manage change, how to network and how to unwind a company. And with each job I made more and more money.
I also became more and more frustrated. What those companies needed from me more than anything was my contacts. I began to understand this as each new job brought opportunities to work with someone I’d met in a previous job. Relationships are the most important thing in the world.
When the internet was still new, everybody sold forward. We sold possibility, not actuality. That sounds great until you realize that your clients’ budgets focus on actuality – they actually need you to do what you say you will do. Maybe this was one of the biggest problems with the internet at that time. You can stay in business for a little while hoping that something will pay off, but before too long you have to start delivering. In the early days of the Internet, everything was possible, but little was delivered. That’s a problem when you’re the one who has brought your relationships to the table.
As my fourth job in two years wound down, I was angry and disappointed in the industry that I had loved. I felt stupid for putting my family’s well-being at stake for one crazy job after another. My phone rang off the hook with job offers from 25-year-olds with the next big idea and I realized that to me, it’s important to do what I say I will do.
I want that on my tombstone. “She did what she said she would do.”
I realized that I felt safer on my own than working for any of the people who were offering me jobs, and that’s when everything changed for me. I went out on my own.
Things came together quickly. Less than three years later I had an office and a handful of employees. After five years I looked at our client list and realized that every name on the list could be tied back to someone I met at one of my previous jobs. After six years we got a real photocopier and the lease that goes with it, and I felt the strings, or perhaps chains, that tied me to a real business, and so it continued for 15 years.
Owning a business in America is a privilege and a blessing. It’s a commitment and a struggle. It’s as hard as a marriage. It’s a process of continual shedding.
During my time as a business owner I succeeded and failed. I helped raise grandchildren, took up golf and married my golf pro. I traveled the world and saw my parents age. I struggled with the daily commitment to something bigger than myself. The expanding and contracting nature of business is maddening. There is little stability even in the most stable companies.
But there is fun and learning.
I’ve found that it’s impossible to separate my work life from my family life because I only have one life. It all gets mashed up together. The lessons I learn from one always apply to the other, and that is the idea for this website and these stories. If you read them all you’ll know me better than your own sister, and that’s the way I like it. Your sister, however, might feel differently.
Over the years I’ve had the chance to speak to a lot of groups, do interviews for various publications and write opinion pieces. Most of those came from stories that are, I swear, 100% true. The most entertaining and insightful writing came from my 2 a.m. Ambien emails that my company loved so much. Nothing is more inspiring than a beautiful woman with a laptop who thinks she isn’t asleep.
This isn’t the story of my life, or even my business. It’s just a few things that happened along the way. I am not a tortured person, but I know why tortured people write. Happy people are boring. Vulnerability and the potential for failure give you an edge. So it’s with that thought that I’m writing what you see here. I hope you enjoy it.
And to the people who will be offended by these stories: I’m sorry, but it’s all true and you shouldn’t have done most of it.