You Must Be Grounded Before You Can Grow

I'm back!

It's been a really long time since I have blogged, which goes hand-in-hand with the fact that it's been a really long time since I've taken time just to reflect, just for myself. I think that one of the things that I'm still learning this season is that you have to make time for yourself. My coach, Xayli Barclay, who is a never-ending fountain of wisdom really took some time last week and sat me down and just spoke to me about self care.

I don't know how many of you can relate, but as a woman entrepreneur, it always seems like there's so much to do and I always feel completely behind. So behind that when I think about things like meditation, journaling, blogging, I'm like okay yeah that would be great but that’s time that I'm not spending working on my to do list and the things that I've told people that I would do and I don't possibly have that amount of time.

I've been guilty of looking at self care as a luxury.

But Xayli said that I can't afford not to spend the time on self-care. Because when I am burning myself out and running myself ragged I'm actually not showing up as my best self. She explained that sometimes she feels like she doesn't have time to go to the gym in the morning and spend an hour on herself, but she knows she's actually going to be less productive and less efficient that day if she skips her self-care time. It's counter-intuitive, but taking time for yourself makes you a better person which in turn makes you better at your job.

An avalanche of stress

The past few weeks, or really the past few months if I'm going to be honest with you, I have been stressed out of my mind. I have never really experienced this level of stress, and I've done a lot of stressful things in my life. But I can easily say that this season of my life was one of the most stressful seasons of my life.

We developed our new edtech software named outline, you can watch the full pitch here, we're currently raising $750,000 on a safe note. I basically woke up one day and ended up the CEO of two companies. I always knew I was the CEO of a consulting company, but I just sort of accidentally became the CEO of an edtech company and I have had to learn so many things so fast. I had to learn an entirely new language and operate completely out of my comfort zone. I had to learn about valuation (please don't ask me about the difference between pre-money and post money, please don't ask me about the difference between pre-seed and Seed), I had to learn about safe notes and capped safe notes and uncapped safe notes and discount rates and go-to-market strategies, and total addressable markets and please don't ask me the difference between serviceable available market and serviceable obtainable markets, I will get back to you on that.

I'm an English major: I like words and essays. I believe greatly in the power of Outline and our company to shape and change the writing landscape of this country and yes, I understand I am a person with very big goals. But I've learned that having big goals is sometimes not enough. You have to also know how to play the game and how to speak the language and how to move in a white, male, San Francisco, bro-y, Silicon Valley-dominated culture as a young, Black, female under 30… and it's hard. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. There was a time when I thought our pitch deck would never be done. This has been a very trying process.

At the same time, I have been growing the consulting company. We hired four new counselors: three college counselors and one law school consultant and I am just going to be honest with you guys because it's my blog and so I can be as honest as I want, there were times that I felt like my back was up against a freaking wall. And so many times I felt alone. I’ve also felt increasing isolation in my professional community and actually gave up the two main Facebook groups for consultants for Lent because being part of these groups was actually contributing to anxiety, negativity, toxicity, self-esteem issues, and stress. I am hopeful that I can return at some point, hopefully in a better headspace.

We have so many good things coming to this company by way of growth, by way of revenue, by way of sales, but I've learned that things don't always align perfectly with timing. There was probably nothing more stressful than being in Cartagena, Colombia for a week for my friend's wedding and emptying my personal bank account so that payroll could run for the company. That wasn't fun. I'd like to not do that again. We're in a better place now and it was a temporary blip or miscalculation on my part of just timing but it's been hard. I'm also trying to create a warm, welcoming, remote, and dynamic team culture and support everyone's professional development and growth and make them feel loved and welcomed and not overwhelmed and not overburdened while myself feeling overwhelmed and overburdened and alone.

You can’t run from your emotions

This has been the hardest season of my life. I actually haven't been praying as much as I would like to. I told my therapist it's because I don't really have good stress coping mechanisms. I just sort of push through. I just don't think about the stress, I just kind of keep doing the next task. It's like that song in Frozen you know when she's sad and she thinks that Elsa has died and Anna is just talking about doing the Next Right Thing. That is sort of me. Everything might be on fire but I'm just going to do the next right thing and then we will eventually get through it. And so sometimes taking the time to pray or meditate forces me to actually think about my emotions and about how overwhelming things are and honestly, I just told myself I didn’t have time to engage in my emotions. Spoiler alert, as you probably already know emotions will find you you cannot hide from them. A couple of weeks ago, I was praying over the March LSAT exam and I was live on Facebook and Linkedin, and YouTube, and I just started to cry. I just was overwhelmed by how much I was really praying for myself and this feeling of desperation and the feeling of so needing to be in God's presence and guidance just came over me. It was a good reminder that I cannot run from my thoughts.

You know I have been sitting on this blog for a while. A couple of months ago, my pastor Stephen Chandler at the Union Church preached about the disciples being anxious and arguing when they were in the boat with Jesus. Jesus had just performed a miracle and fed 5,000 with five loaves of bread, however, when they got back in the boat the disciples were angry with themselves because they realized that they only had one loaf of bread with them. Despite seeing the miracle that Jesus just performed they immediately forgot and focused on their scarcity as soon as they were in a different situation. In Mark 8:17, Jesus responds:

“Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’[a] Don’t you remember anything at all?

Jesus is like, why are you still concerned about what to eat? Like didn’t I just show you that I will provide for you??

I have been playing that over and over and over in my head. Because sometimes I am afraid of what to eat. I'm afraid of being Icarus and flying too close to the Sun and burning. I'm afraid that I'll overextend ourselves, overextend the company, that my goals might be too big. But then I have to remember that God has already provided and there's really no way that God has led me this far just for me to fail. Even when I have no faith in myself I know that God can do it. And he keeps continuing to prove himself even when my faith is not as strong as it could be. One of my favorite devotionals, the First 15 devotional podcast was talking about how God led the Israelites even when in times when they had little faith. And it's a reminder that God leads us even when our faith falters.

Even in this period of incredible stress, anxiety, and fear he has continued to open doors. We pitched last week at KiwiTech’s Empowering Female Founders Venture Capital panel and there were four investors there who immediately wanted to follow up and meet with us. We've had pipeline programs reach out to us, I am meeting soon with the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer of the Law School Admission Council, there are doors that are opening beyond my imagination. But, it’s also scary. However, I have to know that as long as I actually remember to pray and take time out to journal and try to maintain self-care and remember that I'm not building this for me but I'm building it to increase God's Kingdom and to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of students and teachers and writers, it will all be okay. This isn't about me. This is so much more than me and I'm just a vessel that's being used right now. If I can just remember that and remember that truly great things are truly hard things, then even though it won't necessarily make things less scary, it will give me the confidence to know that there is light on the other side and that God has a plan that’s even bigger than my plan. I just have to also remember that I cannot forget him and I cannot forget my purpose.

A plan to become more grounded

So, in furtherance of these goals, I've started using this app called Just Record at night. I don't really have the patience for journaling, I don't know I get very overwhelmed. Honestly, I dictate most of these blogs because there’s something very overwhelming about writing all of the thoughts in my head sometimes and then it never leaves my head and then I just stay a little ball of stress. So I'm trying to just dictate more and using Just Record at night has been really great because it gets my thoughts out before I sleep. I’m also going to try to spend more time in God's presence, I started going back to First15 every morning, and I have thought about going back to meditation. I’m going to just start looking at these things not as things I don't have time for, but as things that keep me grounded. Because without these things that keep me grounded I won't be able to grow the company to where we need to be and I won't be able to grow myself, and that's really most important.