Stepping Back to Step Forward

I've dealt with anxiety for just about as long as I can remember. 

But only in the last half of this decade have I really begun to know the words I need to describe it to other people. You see up until recently, people didn't even talk about anxiety much less describe what it felt like for them. 

For me anxiety varies from day to day, sometimes it's something I feel in my chest. Other days, it’s a pounding of my heart or an aching of my head. Other times it's a shortness of breath and this unsettling feeling that I'm not going to get everything I need to get done, done. 

Here's the hard thing about having anxiety and running a company. 

You want to do all the things, and you want to do them yourself so they’re done “right”, and you want to get them all done right now. But the truth is if you think that that's the way things get done, you're going to run yourself ragged almost instantly trying to answer every single email and post every single blog post and make every single website update. 

That’s exactly where I ended up last December.

I had lost my marketing manager and was in the midst of a major life crisis that was forcing me into some personal growth. I was also trying to launch the two biggest, boldest programs in my professional history. I was working as hard as I possibly could while the rest of my personal life fell to pieces. It was anxiety on overdrive, and my workaholic tendencies came rushing back to me like a security blanket ready to shelter me from that winter’s storms.

While writing has always been my first love, it is work that has always been my favorite addiction.

Because productivity is rewarded in society. People will sing your praises. Sure, the imbalance may destroy you at times, but you’ll have something shiny and profitable to show for it.

Luckily for me, I built other people's businesses long before I started moving forward with my own business. So as the imbalance began to creep in, I knew what I needed to do. In these times of overwhelm, you need to look to others. It’s time to ask for help. It’s time for you to build or re-build your team. So I took my own advice. 

My team is filled with brilliant, creative, like-minded ladies that lead this company forward to bigger better and brighter places than I could ever have built on my own. With their encouragement, expertise, and ability to step up when needed, this company is becoming the company I knew it always could be. And most important, they've made it possible for me to know when to take a step back and focus more on my own happiness.  

Stepping back is hard for me. 

My company is like one of my children, I feel called to care for her each and every day to help her grow. But just like we trust our kids to go out into the world, and trust others to care for them, I am trusting my team to help me lead in new, bigger, and brighter ways.

Now, let’s be clear, when I say I'm taking a step back, it doesn’t mean I am disappearing. Just like we say our kids are children walking outside our bodies, my company is still a huge piece of mine, which means I still plan to be a huge part of the heart of my company. But I may not necessarily be the hands of the company in every single situation. My team is now much more responsible for helping cultivate, create and deliver things to all of you than I am on any given day. 

Instead, I get to be behind the scenes, digging deep to deliver the vision for our organization while also coaching looking to each team member while helping them to uncover their own styles of leadership so that they may bring it forward and into the future. I have to admit, in all the moments of moving forward as a company, this part is my favorite part of a company’s growth. I love the part where we get to lead and see what other people choose to lean into and become.

I'm taking a step back for a lot of reasons. This crisis has made me need to be present for my family now more than ever. With a husband who's a firefighter that works 24-hour shifts, there are whole entire days that I can do nothing but focus on my family. It's a balance that's hard to strike and doesn't do wonders for my nervous system. As somebody who struggles with chronic health challenges, I'm trying my best to figure out the right ways to slow down so that I can be present with them and also not drive myself crazy in the process. This is one way that I'm stepping back so that I can step forward into my role as a mother a little bit further. 

I'm also stepping back from the number of people that I serve on a 1:1 capacity. The reason being is my purpose here on earth is to help as many humans as possible and the only way that I can do that and still be able to have time to sleep is by helping as many people as possible at one time. That's why so much of my recent vision has always been about creating communities so that I could connect with as many humans as possible but I could still find even deeper ways to make an impact by connecting these people to each other. So while I won't be working with as many clients one to one in the future, I will be here with consistency in order to grow our community so that we can support as many people as possible in meaningful ways. 

The last way I will step backwards is from doing everything myself and instead allowing space for my team to step forward and shine out what they do best. Over the course of my career, I have built many teams of all shapes and sizes. And over time, I have come to believe that the greatest form of leadership is about building great leaders by letting other people see and step into their highest potential. I know now more than ever that my job is to lay out the company’s vision clearly so that my team can step up and take responsibility, stepping forward with all of their skills and potential to make it better and brighter, together. 

I'm so incredibly proud of the team I've built and everything they're bringing forth for our community. And I have incredible trust in their abilities to bring my vision to life. More than anything though, I'm grateful for the fact that they have stepped forward so that I can take the space I need so that I can shape the vision for the company I've always dreamed of while also being able to relax and know that I don't necessarily have to always be the one running every little piece of the show. 

Thank you to everyone who has understood my need for distance during this time, and for your embracing and supporting this shift as we move into a new and unfolding version of our company. I'm so excited for everything that we've been building for all of you and, as always, I'm honored to have you as a part of this ride.