I'm Still Here

Hey there.

You may be wondering where I have been. Well, I’ve been around. There have big some big changes in my life that I’d like to share with you. Maybe I can find some answers as to what’s next.

The big news

I stepped down as CEO from my company. I wish there was a better way to say it. “Stepping down” feels like I did something wrong, or like the board fired me. (No I don’t have a board).

It’s not like that at all. In truth, I am better positioned to serve the company by focusing all my time on sales and marketing. In turn, Tricia was already running the company and giving her the official title as CEO makes it a lot easier for her to make decisions.

She now has full autonomy. She’s the boss. Not me.

It’s different

Truthfully, when I made the decision to step down and when I made the announcement, I didn’t expect my life to be much different. Most of my time was already spent on sales and marketing anyway, what’s the difference between then and now?

As it turns out, it’s much different.

No longer being responsible for managing all the ins and outs of the company has relieved me from a lot of worry.

This afternoon, Jules and I had to take a quick trip to Boulder and I realized that the reason that CEO (and even management) positions come with so much stress, is because you feel like someone is always mad at you.

In business, no matter how hard you try, mistakes will happen. When mistakes happen, it feels as though you let people down. When people give you their money, it comes with an unspoken yet understood agreement. Every time someone trades money for a service, they are saying “I am trusting you with my money, so please don’t mess this up.”

Now that I’m a few days removed, I can see how that’s the part that really causes the stress. It’s the constant feeling of “I want to do a good job so this person is happy with me and I don’t want to fuck it up and have this person be mad at me.”

Space to breathe

I’m feeling proud of myself. That may sound trite, but over the last week or so there have been many moments where I wanted to jump into a problem and work to fix it. But I haven’t, at least not fully. To my utmost relief the team is carrying on just fine without me.

In fact, I can safely say that they are doing better than ever. In the short week of my non involvedness (is that a word?), they have already tightened up systems, cleaned up messes, and have gotten things done that they haven’t been able to get done before. The reason is because I’m not in there, clogging up the flow.

I’m so proud of Tricia. Every day, watching her navigate this new territory so flawlessly is very inspiring. I know it’s not easy, but she makes it look like it is.

Anyway, here I am.

I’m still alive, I’m still overthinking, and I’m still doing the deal. But I’m not writing. I don’t have any plans to write and I don’t have any plans to not write.

This feels like the first time in my life where I have fully and truly accepted the moment for what it is. I am allowing life to present itself to me in the order it wants. No expectations.

Of course I’ll continue writing, I may even write tomorrow. Or I might not.

I don’t know. It depends how I feel in the moment.