Fail, get back up, repeat forever
By the end of 1999 I was 24, I had a six month old baby and I had started my first business, a children’s clothing company called Spike & Ella (named for my daughter and a family Chihuahua). I was living with my boyfriend (later husband, much later ex-husband) in his mum’s small house in Burbank, California where we’d moved straight after university in Boston and where we’d had our daughter a year later, unplanned but beautiful and immediately loved.
I was buzzing with energy and creativity and an entrepreneurial drive I hadn’t known was in me. I absolutely loved being a mum and I was also driven to create and build a business. I remember wishing there were some honest business books by women and/or mothers; ones that showed more of the nitty gritty of starting a business instead of making it all sound so easy. But books like this didn’t seem to exist or at least I didn’t find them, so I swore (or maybe hoped) that one day I’d be the person to write that book.
I don’t think I’ve achieved enough yet to write that business book/memoir, although it is still a dream of mine, but I have always tried on social media and in my interiors books and other writing to be honest about the process - the struggles as well as the successes. The process of styling a shoot or decorating a house or raising kids or getting divorced or starting over - I’ve been pretty open about them all.
One of the greatest compliments I received about my books was that they’re soulful, because that has been my goal - to write about interiors and life in a meaningful and honest way, rather than just “this colour goes well with that pattern” and “here are next year’s trends” and isn’t everything easy and perfect. I see now that it’s why I started Life Unstyled all those years ago - because even though I was styling for a living I wanted people to know that those perfectly composed images were for inspiration only, they weren’t real life. Real homes can and will and must have more life in them. Life Unstyled. Get it? ;)
It has been vitally important to me over the years to continue to show as honest a version as I can of my life and work (and failures) in an effort to make others feel good. Probably to my detriment in some ways. Had I promoted an alternate - more commercial and marketable and glossy - version of my life as a designer and author I probably could have made a fortune in sponsorship deals the way I’ve seen other interiors influencers do.
Perhaps some would see this as a failure or lost opportunity, but that route never felt right for me. In the earlier days of ‘the influencer’, brands seemed only to be interested in interiors ‘experts’ (anyone with a nice house and a lot of followers) with a very commercial style and a willingness to promote a bit of a fairytale life, and I never fit that mould. It didn’t feel authentic. I don’t begrudge others for taking that route though and some manage to do it with style and authenticity and a minimum cringe factor, but it just hasn’t been the way for me so far. Or maybe the right brands never approached me, I don’t know. (Interiors and travel brands with style and integrity, feel free to message me ;))
When you get to a certain age and you’ve spent a life seeking rather than settling, you get used to failing. Or at least failure happens often enough that you learn to expect it. It’s a tricky thing to balance - having a positive mindset and believing you can make great things happen at the same time as knowing you will likely fail before you succeed. It’s a bit of a mindf**k if I’m honest.
A funny thing happens when you’ve had some publicly recognised success. People see you differently than you see yourself. Similar to when someone is on the TV and people assume that means they’re famous and rich, if you’re an author people sometimes do the same. Now I’m not comparing myself to Hollywood stars at all - I am not delusional - but you know when very famous people say that they don’t feel any different from a normal person, yet the world sees them as ‘other’? In my own very small, I’m-not-actually-famous kind of way, that’s how I feel.
I was recently referred to on a well known podcast as “A super successful stylist” and it felt weird to hear. I didn’t know that’s what people thought of me. And a relatively new friend also said something similar about the way she sees me and again I was surprised. This isn’t about false modesty either - I know I’ve done some cool things! But I’m also a human with insecurities and self doubt like everyone else. Am I successful? What even is success? How do we measure it? And how do we know when we’ve made it? (Answer: never)
If I am successful then why does it still feel like I’m frequently failing or at least falling short of my goals/dreams? And why at 47 do I feel like I’m just getting started and have so much more to achieve when others my age are already planning their early retirements? If you watched my introduction video you would have heard me say that I’ve had this nagging feeling for a few years that I haven’t yet reached my full potential in terms of career. I think it’s something a lot of creatives feel (maybe forever?) and perhaps people at my age feel this as well.
We’re in mid-life crisis territory let’s not forget. But it doesn’t feel like a crisis, more like a longing. A longing for more, but not in a consumerist way. I don’t want more stuff (well maybe some stuff…) , but I do want more achievements and recognition and connection. I want to create more but not just for myself. The entrepreneur in me still wants to build an even more ‘successful’ business and the truth is, the older I get the more scared of failure I become. I thought it would be the other way around. And yet I keep going because it doesn’t feel like a choice. I’m driven to keep seeking even though I know (and I will share) many more failures. Sometimes it’s exhausting but so is doing nothing.
Going back to 1999 when I started my children’s clothing business, what I wanted to hear from other women in business was this: their success hadn’t happened over night, they’d stumbled badly and frequently along the way, had made huge mistakes and not known how to do things. But if you keep getting up it becomes more and more likely that you will succeed. And even if you don’t succeed (whatever that really means) at least you lived an interesting life and you challenged yourself. I didn’t hear or read those words back then, so I’m saying them to you now in case you need to hear them.
The female founder business book I did find at the library in about 1999 was written by a woman who had started a well-known maternity clothing company, a relatively new concept back then. Twenty-four year old me was excited to get some insight - how did she juggle motherhood and running a business? How did she get funding? What advice did she have for people starting out? I wanted to hear about the failures so I’d feel comforted about my own struggles. But irritatingly the book left me wanting. I couldn’t relate to it at all so that’s when I promised if I ever became successful, I’d be more honest and open about my failures and imperfections as I built a business.
A lot has changed since then. People are more likely to share the behind the scenes and the struggle behind the success story, even if it is often a curated and edited version. It’s more common for business owners or artists to discuss their failures. There are even podcasts and books devoted entirely to the subject. And that feels like a positive. I don’t think anyone would now dare to claim that running your own business is easy and there are plenty of case studies of companies growing, collapsing, being rebuilt, collapsing again - enough to scare you off from ever starting your own! Some of my female business heroes back in the day went on to have huge successes followed by very public failures. Think Rachel Ashwell of Shabby Chic and Cath Kidston. But I’m so grateful to have heard their stories and learned from them.
We all have to define our own version of success and failure and there are no rights or wrongs, but as long as you keep working towards whatever your dream may be and you find happiness and joy and some satisfaction along the way even as you stumble and fall/fail, then it is worth it. Because - cliché alert - it really is about the journey.
The next female business memoir I’m reading is Floor Sample by Julia Cameron who wrote The Artist’s Way, the now classic self-improvement book for (re-)discovering your creativity, a book that has been a part of my daily routine for years, as described in my last post. I can’t wait to get stuck in. Have you read any inspiring business memoirs, recent or otherwise? Share in the comments below x