Lessons in Communication, Resilience, Adaptability, and Self-Worth
If you've been avoiding difficult conversations, struggling with indecision, or have felt a disconnect between who you want to be and how you're spending your time, read on...
“If you don’t define who you are, what happened to you will” - quote from an upcoming Parea book, The Quiet Teachers.
This quote has been weighing heavy on me since I’ve been editing the manuscript for this book. I am an editor, a founder, a CEO, a publisher, a marketer, and a writer—but I’ve been acting as a (lousy) accountant, project manager, and meeting scheduler because I’ve been letting the things that are happening to me define me rather than taking charge and remembering who I am and what I’m here to do. Perhaps that resonates with some of you.
First and most relevant to you, I’ve failed at doing the thing I love most, writing, engaging with you, giving you glimpses of building a publishing company while I build it myself. People writing things is how I make my living but for some reason, writing fell to the lowest on my priority list.
A bunch of things have happened since we last spoke.
Parea launched another book into the world, I launched a creative and marketing studio that supports authors and publishers (Parea Studios), I hosted the first Philoxenia creative writing retreat, I signed a distribution deal with a very well-regarded distributor, I launched the first Parea Studios book, and acquired another book. I also dealt with a lot of business challenges; all of which made me and the business stronger, though I didn’t handle all of them perfectly and learned lots of lessons along the way.
The next post will be about books, but this one is going to be about challenges, resilience, mistakes, and learnings. While I’m far from the first person to write these things down, hopefully they’re a nice reminder and boost for you today, whenever it is you read this.
Note: I realize that breaking through the shiny, glossy barrier of “everything is AMAZING and going SO well, I couldn’t be happier!” is risky—as the sole founder and CEO of multiple companies, of course I’d love everyone to think that things are perfect. Things are really, really good. The business is healthy, the community is growing bigger and stronger every day, and I couldn’t be prouder of Parea Studios and our writing retreats (more on those). But as a founder, I’ve always been way more interested in hearing about how people dealt with hardships, and I’ve taken much solace in knowing that the most successful businesses in the world have had their shaky moments. Instead of writing about those moments decades after becoming successful, I’m taking the risk to write about them now, in the hopes that my own experiences and candor around them helps you.
Challenge: Delivering Bad News
Delivering bad news has been difficult for me as long as I can remember. I hate conflict. I want everyone to be happy and carefree and fulfilled at all times. When I worked as a Chief of Staff, I used to try to solve everyone’s problems and keep people as happy as possible until I learned that was distracting me from doing my job, which was representing our CEO and ensuring she could be the best CEO she could be. When I became a COO, challenging conversations got easier and I thought I was cured of my allergy to conflict. But when some of Parea’s projects got delayed, and when I realized I had overspent on things that I could have paid 1/10th of the price for, and that I was focusing on too many things that didn’t drive immediate revenue, and all of that led to having to make hard decisions about staffing, projects, and other things, I hid from the problem. I buried my head in the sand, convinced that I’d sort this out the way I always sort things out and that no hard conversations needed to be had.
I had emails from people who I had promised work to wondering when their projects would start. Invoices would come in and I’d cringe paying them, but telling myself I’d find a way to make it up in the coming months. I did find a way, and I believe that these sorts of hard times push you to find the best, most creative solutions to things, but I didn’t communicate the way I should with the people who mattered.
Once I did the hardest task, which was simply writing down what I wanted (needed) to say, things felt better. And once I finally got the strength to relay the news to the right people, their support, kindness, and eagerness to help was beyond what I could have hoped for. This was a lesson I had to learn again, which is that people simply want to be communicated with.
People are intuitive, they are emotionally intelligent, and they know when things have shifted. The most frustrating experience is knowing something has changed but not knowing what, and not knowing how it impacts you.
Communication is everything. People are more understanding and compassionate than you think. My advice to you: over communicate, be direct, don’t try to manage other people’s feelings or experiences, and do treat everyone with the same kindness you hope to receive.
Resilience & Adaptability
People often ask me how I am able to make decisions so quickly, to never doubt my own perspective. I believe that there are no such things as good or bad decisions, there are only decisions. Your future success or failure lies in your ability to make a decision quickly, evaluate even faster if the decision is generating the intended results, and pivot just as quickly if your initial hypothesis isn’t right. I’m often “wrong” about what I think will work, but I don’t hesitate in righting the wrong and going in a different direction.
This bias towards action and quick thinking led me to create Parea Studios. Before committing to Parea Books as a publishing house, I’d often thought about creating a communications, marketing, and creative studio for authors. I assumed that there wouldn’t be a big enough client base to support an entire business around this, but I was wrong. I found myself looking at Parea Books’ forecast, looking around at the dismal VC environment, thinking about whether I really wanted to give more of my business away and be beholden to investors or if I wanted to retain as much control as possible, and looking at Parea’s runway. I knew I needed money, and my preferred way of getting it was through revenue vs. investment. I had also had numerous conversations with authors and publishers about their desire to work with modern marketers who knew how to identify audiences, create and engage communities, and interact directly with readers. I thought, “that’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and I know how to do it!” So I created Parea Studios and soon thereafter had my calendar full with business development meetings, getting to speak with some of the best publishers and most talented authors out there.
Should I have started with Parea Studios and then launched Parea Books after? Would the “right” decision have been to pursue an agency model from the start? Is the “right” decision to even have launched Parea Studios at all? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares. It’s working really well right now, I’m loving doing it, and the people I work with are happy. If there’s any piece of advice I can give you, it’s to be less precious with your decisions and do the work to make yourself as resilient and adaptable as possible. Embrace change, embrace being wrong, and embrace listening to your instincts.
Re-learning: Taking Control of the Narrative
“When someone judges or criticizes you, when things fall apart, when jobs and relationships end—it doesn’t mean what you think it does, but it becomes what you think it means.” — quote from an upcoming Parea book, The Quiet Teachers.
Read that quote several times. It’s so, so good. I’m going to figure out a way to stick it on my bathroom mirror so I can remind myself of it every day.
Let’s say you get fired from your job. You tell yourself that you’re a bad employee, that you’ve failed the company, and that you’re not good at the thing you thought you were good at. But let’s also say you were working for a narcissist boss, their business was failing, they didn’t have enough money in the bank for the next payroll, and they needed someone to blame for their own failure. That’s why you were fired—but for you, the experience meant that you weren’t good enough. So that becomes a narrative that replays in your mind and you convince yourself of this to the point that it becomes your reality.
You have to take control of your own narrative.
I’ve worked with and for some exceptionally brilliant people, especially women, and have learned most of what I know from them. But I also grew up in the NYC startup world, where female founders were dazzlingly glamorous, as much fashion icons and influencers as they were business leaders. They had a seemingly endless supply of money for every beauty treatment imaginable, and somehow they were constantly being gifted clothes and accessories from the coolest brands. Every part of their image was deliberate, showing people that not only were they running successful companies but they also were gorgeous, wealthy, had impeccable style, and were exceptionally well-groomed and manicured.
So when I didn’t have the money to spend to get the whitest and brightest teeth or the most glowing skin, and no brand was sending me silky dresses and “cool” sweatshirts and sneakers (are they that cool, though?) I told myself I wasn’t living up to the expectations of a founder of a new consumer brand. I recently left on a trip to Los Angeles, where I was hosting five events over the course of seven days. I packed a checked bag because I wanted as many outfit options as possible, I needed to look every bit the part of Powerful Female CEO. But of course Iberia lost my bag, leaving me with a baggy pair of jeans and a white shirt that had been yellowed with wear. I couldn’t afford to replenish my wardrobe with designer dresses, so I went to Zara. I found a $7 skirt which I’ve now worn more than any other item I brought (I ended up getting my bag back at the end of my trip), I borrowed clothes from a very kind friend, and I asked my hair colorist if he’d be willing to do my hair at a steep discount because I couldn’t afford to see him otherwise. I also had to cancel an event day-of because not enough people had bought tickets and one of the partners in the event canceled last minute. I thought about how unacceptable this would have been to some of the people I’ve worked for in the past, and I was humiliated that I had to cancel. I know this probably sounds trite to some of you, but I felt a lot of insecurity around this. I thought that I was failing—I hadn’t raised $10M in a seed round of funding, I didn’t have a team of 25 people, there are tons of fun projects and ideas that I’d love to do but couldn’t afford, I had to cancel an event (failure alert!) and to top it off I didn’t look the part. I convinced myself that I just wasn’t a CEO, I couldn’t hack it.
But when my colorist agreed (quickly!) to do my hair in exchange for me being a hair model for him, and when I found a now favorite item of clothing for under $10, and when the only beauty treatment I could afford was getting a glow (ok, maybe just a really red face) from running in the Santa Monica Mountains, and when I looked back and realized just how far Parea had come in the few months since it launched and how incredibly talented the people I work with are, I became really proud. I thought about how much stress I’d had around making every single event, every public appearance *perfect* for the people I’d worked for in the past and realized that absolutely none of it mattered.
What matters is that you work hard, you build a stable business over time with economics that work, that you prioritize the people who keep the lights on (your customers, your employees), and that you exemplify your own values. I value creativity, empathy, authenticity, clear communication, and thoughtful experiences. Delivering that to others is all that matters.
In Conclusion
This was lengthy, so thank you for reading. I sincerely hope that it was somewhat helpful—perhaps it made you feel less alone, perhaps it inspired you to make that decision or have that hard conversation.
I personally have felt a bit stuck over the past few months—spending most of my time spinning my wheels on finances vs. finding authors I want to work with, getting caught in the weeds of projects vs. focusing on big picture goals and strategy, stressing about whether things are going well enough vs. putting in the work and having the confidence to make sure that things are going well and will continue to do so. Maybe you relate to this. After realizing this was happening, I made conscious changes to get back to where I want to be: writing, reading, editing, engaging with community, and meeting new authors.
If you’ve also felt in a rut, what can you do today to start getting out of it? If you haven’t defined who you are, start there. If you already know, take an inventory of your life right now: where are you spending your energy and time? Does it reflect who you are? Write down a sentence that encapsulates your own narrative, the one you want, and see how the nagging voice in your head differs from it.
In a world where everyone is so very well-traveled, well-read, highly-cultured, and put-together on social media and in the press, I think it’s important to take time to realize that very few things are as they seem. The most important thing you can do is to define who you are, where you want to go, and what you want to do. And then do it. Nothing else matters.