Just as quickly as things grow, they can fall apart.

Life has ups and downs. For everyone. The life we choose as entrepreneurs creates especially large distances between those ups and downs. The highs are high, and the lows are low.

I first started the company by printing shirts for bands in a small corner of a warehouse. Later, we printed more shirts in a larger warehouse. Later, we scaled up the manufacturing side of the company even more by adding more great contract partners and with robust investment in equipment, people, and process in our own facilities.

In 2018, the difficult decision to downsize the operation by selling off the manufacturing side of the business was made. There were a number of factors that led to this decision, some of which were in our control, while others were not. I know the decision was right for the organization as a whole, to lean down and get back to the basics of the core business, but it was full of painful lessons and the process as a whole was excruciating - mentally, emotionally, physically.

Ultimately, failed. I could’ve prevented it. I could’ve worked harder. I could’ve been a better leader. I could’ve anticipated and solved problems before they became too big to fix. I wasn’t the best version of myself. I was learning and growing in many ways, but perhaps not sustainably so, and not in the most important ways. I could have been more focused in fewer areas. Instead, I was splitting investing in other projects, launching other ventures, and pursuing my own creative endeavors in the music business. I was spread way too thin, trying to be great at too many things and ultimately being remarkable at exactly zero of them.

At the same time, I was learning a very real truth about being human. My body was trying to tell me that it would no longer let me continue working the way I had through my 20’s. I learned that I in fact DO have a ceiling, and the way I was doing things wasn’t sustainable. The answer in my 20’s was always “yes” - that project, that opportunity, that problem - bring it on. I’ll figure it out. I’d just have to work harder. Stay up all night, get it done. Who needs sleep, exercise, lunch? Well, as it turns out, we all do.

My body had been giving me feedback, asking nicely for me to slow down. I hadn’t listened. It turned from a polite ask to an aggressive demand to get my attention. Hitting that ceiling was a wake up call. I learned about limits, formerly a foreign concept, and amidst turmoil and chaos I also had to figure out how to do things better, more efficiently. I needed more structure and more discipline. I needed more intention - more attention to the things that truly matter and more “no’s” to the things that don’t.

After successfully selling the manufacturing piece of the business, the company had more bandwidth available to focus on the core business in a way that could scale more rapidly.

During this period, I took a little time to marry my best friend on what was the happiest day of my life.

About a month after that, my business partner passed away unexpectedly.

This was a tragic event that as young entrepreneurs in our 20’s and 30’s we had not prepared for in any way. This set in to motion a new sequence of events that I will not detail here. The short version is that the next couple years were incredibly challenging for a number of reasons. The business was ultimately sold. There were loose ends left untied that took time to unravel and then clean up. My life was full of uncertainty as I was considering how I wanted to reinvent myself. The global pandemic beginning in early 2020 disrupted the entire world and didn’t make the process of designing the next chapter of my life any easier.