Confessions of an Interior Designer: Parallels
I started my business when our first daughter was three months old.
In their infancies (my daughter and my business), I fed and nurtured, I researched how to parent and how to be an entrepreneur, I had incredible support and I stumbled around not knowing 100% about what I was doing. Everyday I did the best I could, and with all of this, they both grew.
Fast forward 17 years and the business I started out of my basement with the original iMac and a fax machine (I was a big deal!) and kids often in tow, is now an office of six, still working with some of the same clients I started my business with. What a blessing.
Fast forward 17 years to earlier this week when I put our eldest daughter on a plane to Cyprus, Greece, en route to Israel for Junior Worlds Open Water Championships. She'll be swimming a 7.5 kilometre race in the Red Sea.
She has been a competitive swimmer since the age of seven. It was roughly this same time I felt it was time to take my business to the next level. Both of us embarking on something new.
Her swimming career has been a steady rise, not a 'come out of no-where phenom', but the tried and true, coachable, hard working and determined type. I like to think my approach to business is somewhat the same.
For the last 10 years we have both experienced growth, opportunities, successes, failures, disappointments, achievements and a rollercoaster of emotion as we have followed our dreams and embraced our passions. In all of this, she has inspired me.
Let me segue to New Years 2018. Our family sat around the table and acknowledged one word that resonated with us as we moved into a new year. My daughter and I ironically chose the same word.
DO
This year has been challenging on multiple levels for both of us. Swimming is hard. High school is hard. Running a business is hard. Being a mom is hard. Yet, we continue to DO.
Simultaneously we are both working towards goals, big and small. My business is changing. It is evolving and I couldn't be more excited.
My daughter is entering her last year of high school. Soon she'll be ready to take on a new chapter of her own. Whatever that looks like, I'm excited for her.
Much like the stripes on my daughters dress, there have been many parallel paths in our journeys. As a mom, and an entrepreneur. As a teenager, and a swimmer.
Both of us are ready for the next level.
Swimming a 7.5k race in the Red Sea is surely going to push my girl to new limits, mentally and physically. Both of which I know she will rise to. She doesn't cease to inspire me.
My business is ready to grow again. What that looks like, I'm not entirely sure. And I too, am ready to rise to the occasion.
We are both on the cusp of something exciting. I just know it. We've got nowhere to go but everywhere.