An Entrepreneurs Life Pause

I have been in a dark place for a long time. Some people say I'm negative. True, as I am a reflection of my mother, a known negative person. 

Do I want to be negative? HECK NO. Do I think I'm negative? Not often. When I'm smiling in life I feel totally positive. But yes the last three years have been super hard on my psyche. I'd say only a few people in the world can handle these life circumstances to the better. I, not at all. 

Almost super ripped physically. (for an older woman this is pure joy) My body was at an all time high of sweetness and then an injury, or more like an evil life ending cruelty crept into my right foot. Then it spread into my soul. : - /

Trapped I Am

I kept buying new running shoes, as surly shoes must not last longer than three months. I could not figure out what was the problem with my foot. It hurt on and off and then one day it hurt all the time from then on. This was the beginning of my downfall as an athlete, as a woman, and as an entrepreneur. This foot problem would lead to my destruction. It would lead to my total dispare, my hopelessness, my desire to jump. 

During my battle with my foot, so many things happened. I had to make the decision to close down my startup DigiThin. Start a new startup. Quit the job I loved, as standing for twelve hours would not work as only one hour was all I could do. I had to give up running, hiking, being a free able bodied person to do anything in life that included my body working. 

My Struggle

I had never had a job of sitting. I always had jobs that I moved in. What would I do for a living? Startup life was still not at the stage of paying or doing full time. Ugg, swirling in my brain, my life was spinning out of control and six deaths in a one year period of friends or family members happened upon my personal struggle. All but one, cruel tragic deaths of young people snuffed out. The self centered sorrow of myself was extra pounding upon me. They died and my death was looking really GOOD to me.  

I don't want to be no cripple. I don't want a failed startup. I don't want to be a bad mother or wife. I don't want any of that, but that's what I got. That's what I live. Misery of life encapsulated me, like a easy pill on the beside table.

Sucked into misery of an evil that I can't seem to escape has been my life these last three years. I keep looking for the sunrise of bright hope. For the day I turn away from all this sorrow and struggle, and surge into what God wants me to do. I keep searching for my happy day. For now I'm in a life pause. 

Yeah, I do have the capability to build a startup to success. I know that. But all appearances of who I am would lead others to believe I'm some crazy woman. Some crazy sloth to be forgot. I can't stand that part of me. But that's the part that gives me visions of things others cannot see. It's my gift, and curse I suppose. 

Clouds Are Rarely Like This: Shredded Cotton Balls

As much as I hate to live through these episodes of insane life, I know my Lord Jesus Christ walks we me, as he guides me in this maze of pure torture. I will walk the path crippled, I will do what the creator wants. I will do as he says, to bless humanity. I will build what HE wants. ~

And The Day Of Beautiful Sky Ended With This

To all the people who have passed this year. I'm still smiling because we knew each other, I'm still thinking about what you left on the lives of others. I'm still adding you into the build. 

•  My bother Mark:Age 53. Found decomposed in his apartment - death undetermined
• Granddad: Old age - I feel good about this death.
• Rob: brother in law. Age 36, quick and swift cancer. Super Sad. A father to one and husband to a beautiful wife, my sister Sara.
• Jason: Christian brother. Age 41, drunk driver hit his car, instant death. Super, super sad. A father of three, a husband to one loving wife. A lover of the Lord.
• Audi: My cousin. An only child to my Aunt Dorthy. Early onset Alzheimer's. His funeral, many expressed the sorrow"This is too bad, he is a good person" My Aunt, his mother, Dorothy was there, but she went instantly blind 15 months earlier. She could not see him in his last days. It was a twofold sorrow for me.
• Jackie: A childhood friend. I ran into her in adult life. We talked and smiled. She was murdered and dismembered. 

All these deaths in a one year period. 

Geez, A Really Hard Day For Me and Startup Building

My anguish this last year was almost gone. Five deaths, four of them young people, and two of them our own, treps. Lives cut short of dreams created. Nothing sadder than that. A startup never to be built. 

Personally the toll of those deaths on my personal life has been a big burden on my fragile psyche. Grief wrecks havoc on my rarely sound mind. Building comes and goes in waves of hope and hopelessness. I'm teetering on the edge of choice. Should I carry on, or just end it all?  

Today I woke with the plan to continue to build passdown, and then my husband opened up the mail he had forgotten about for a month. The IRS sent a letter. Yep, we are being audited. So they told us what they wanted and we had thirty days to comply. We are two days over the thirty days, when we read the letter.

It was my last startup. The one I shut down a long time ago. It was 2012 they wanted to know about, and here I am in 2015 thinking that's all done and over. Yet the government wants to know all about what I did in 2012. Ugg. 

Their check boxes never matched any of the replies I wanted to give, the biggest one being. It's a failed startup, that I spent four years on, and blew 55k of my own money on. No check box for that. Yeah, I learned a ton from it, but I lost big time on cash and emotions, if you want any more from me because I FAILED,well, then I think you are crazier than I. 

I didn't do bad things and launder money. I didn't rip people off. They never bought my product. I didn't hide or do any legal things wrong. I'm no evil business woman, I just FAILED at being successful. So, why is the IRS auditing my husband and I? Why is what I feel I have put behind me, still haunting me? I'm done with it, why can't they be? 

Funny, we filed the tax forms on time, and it took them two years to audit us. Two years to ask, what did you do in 2012? Hmm, FAILED! Duh! Surly I would love to be reaping in the black

and paying big taxes to you, but I didn't succeed. 

Today was hard for me. I had to dig through paper and digital files. It made me look at what I thought was good book keeping and see, it was all a mess. Disheveled like my soul. I was torn between thoughts of, "I know I kept good books" and "What the hell happened" 

I am suffering in such a twisted bad way right now, this was not a good day of hope for me. I tried really hard to believe I was a good business woman, but all I could see was a woman who failed her entire life. All I could see was a lifetime of struggle and a woman who had no skills in anything. It's a pretty horrible place to land on. Especially because "hope" was hanging around me. It was teasing me to think I can keep building. 

We spent the whole day sorting through all the request they asked of us. It was miserable.  I had other plans for today and the IRS changed them. I feel terrible that I wasted my husbands money,and now I continue to waste his time on fixing my past startup mistakes. To present to him a failure as a wife, and a failure as a startup builder, well, that torments my soul. How I wish I could be like normal people and just work for a company doing what they want for the rest of my life. But I can't do that. I have to build ~ startups. 






   

My Startup Soul Hurts

I'm not a hard person to work for, or work with. I've been in the workforce since I was twelve years old. I've come to understand the lazy worker, the super worker, and the pathetic worker, and I can work well with all of them.

I've seen the companies I work for hire seemingly great people just to turn around and fire them shortly there after. Judging a good hire is exceptionally hard. Some people can present amazing and turn out to be a pathetic lazy worker, who wants to get paid to do nothing. I'm sure to bet many people who interview horrible and don't get the job, surely were the best one to hire, yet so many companies will never know they passed on the great one, just because they interviewed poorly. 

I've failed at this a few times myself. In my last startup I hired two people who interviewed great, but turned out to be the lazy kind who do not live up to what they presented in the interview. 

Currently I'm struggling with the cofounder issue. Finding a cofounder is a big problem for many startup builders. That's why they have all these co founder dating sites. For six weeks I've been waiting for a cofounderslab meetup. Then days before it was to happen I took ill and could not go to the meeting. You do not know how much this upset me. I need to build a founding team, and I do have two people who say they are in, but  here again I've shared documents that we are to collaborate on and not one scratch of collaboration has occurred from either person. 

All that has occurred is people saying they want to be a part of Passdown and saying they can do this,and they can do that, but in the end, not one thing they say they will do has been done. What am I to think?

This is hard on my startup soul. My mind goes through all kinds of self doubt. I start asking myself questions. Am I asking too much of them? Am I mean or cruel? Am I a bully? What the hell is wrong with me, if I can get people to say yes, but I cannot get them to work?  Am I not good enough at the judging of people and I cannot weed out the ones that say yes, but don't work? Maybe the idea is flawed? Maybe it's a fucking stupid idea? Maybe I'm crazy? Then I think of all the founder dating sites and that reminds me, I'm not the only one with this problem. It's widespread in every workforce, and it's widespread in the startup world too. 

The thing is, if I joined someone elses startup and said I would do this and that, well I'm going to do it. If I'm not happy with the startup, then I'm going to turn in my resignation. I'm not going to say yes and do nothing. In fact sometimes I think I'm going to toss Passdown into the trash and join someone elses startup. I'd be a shining worker, who contributes not only to the growth of the idea but the shaping of it. 

I do not think I'm forcing my idea down anyones throat and making them do it. I just put the basic idea out there, I know the idea will change and morph with others input. That's what building a startup is. It's testing the idea out and pivoting when needed. It's adding to or taking parts of the idea out. It's humans creating something out of nothing. It's the most beautiful and rewarding work anyone can do. 

Would the startup Gods please send me technical cofounders that want to build something and not just say YES and do nothing? That's my prayer, and for the Bronco's to win. *just got the second part of my prayer answered. Thank you startup Gods.