Part 5: The New York Years Continued. (40-47)
2001 was an interesting time to launch a business. The U.S. was reeling from the twin tower attacks, consumer spending was down (America runs on confidence) and brands were cutting their budgets. I had something to prove to my new “owners,” so I was thrilled when I got the opportunity to pitch Revlon. They were doing a film integration with the Bond and needed expert support to optimize the connection across the media. I remember sitting at a boardroom table of 30 of their top executives with my assistant and a freelancer and pitching their international business. When I got the job (yikes!) I had to convince my owners franchise that I needed to hire a little help to pull it off.
Within five years I had built a solid business, started exploring all the new digital mediums - bloggers were now fashion runway front row-worthy, SEO and e-commerce was a thing, and Twitter had changed the way we communicated (140 characters or less!).
Time for a new adventure. I took the business out on my own.
We got a very cool space in the NoMad district of the city, and I moved to the 46th floor of a new build on 5th Avenue which rocked my world. There’s nothing like a view of the skyline in New York. It’s so easy to get trapped in the concrete canyons. I remember wanting to live somewhere high up, jumping in a cab and instructing the driver to just drive north. Keeping my eyes peeled upward, when I saw a tall building, I jumped out in K-Town, wandered into the lobby, and asked if they had rentals. The building didn’t, but the doorman called over a real estate agent who just happened to be there looking after an owner’s apartment, and within 30 minutes I secured my new place to live.
The first year of my new business was rocky. I had a staff of about 15 people and the economic crash came, shutting down a few of our major accounts. My cashflow wasn’t what I thought it was and within a year I was in a bit of trouble. I’d signed an expensive lease because I thought the gorgeous office space would translate into more business. I was wrong. I have a blog post on being careful to not overextend yourself. I wish I’d read something like that during these years. But investment meant growth, so I was doing what lots of people were doing. And it was a tough place to be when the bottom fell out.
Still, we kept going, winning business, tightening our spending. We even started something new, launching 24 Savvy, an online resource for value living - everyone was trying to save money. Just prior to taking the business out on my own, I had hit the age of 40. I had always had hopes of getting married and maybe even having children one day. Well, the children part (natural birth) was mostly likely not going to happen, but marriage?
I remember having an epiphany at a particularly low point. I just needed to live the life I had in my mind and heart now. Don’t wait for a partner. So, I started trying out new things – golf, painting, piano, and French lessons. Ah, this was good for my soul. Mainly because I knew I’d never be good at any of these things, so I had the freedom to just enjoy and explore.
Well, letting go (another blog post on this) can be one of the best things you do for you. And since I began to find confidence in myself through enjoying myself, guess what? I met my future hubby. Letting go of preconceived notions of what my life should look like gave me space to breathe, and it created a less desperate message than the one I had probably been sending. This is a story for another piece but suffice it to say he’s awesome. I met him through good friends, he came at just the right time. He helped me reconfigure my business (he’s ruthless) and I pulled back all my personal spending. That was fun, ha! He also invited me to move with him to London where his job was taking him – oh the places you will go!