2019 Reflection

A year ago, my husband and I were discussing who had what for vacation time, and how many days we would take off for Christmas, knowing we also had a vacation to Thailand planned in February. Last year at this time, I had never done a single fair, market, or event with 27Teas. In fact, in all of December 2018 I had just 8 online orders and 6 of them were family members. I made less money in all of 2018 than I did last Saturday.

A lot can change in a year.

We started 2019 by spending New Years day pulling up old green carpet and painting my now office. The next two weekends were spent painting trim and cutting floor boards. I remember my mom sending me a text, asking what we were doing on a Friday night, and I sent her a picture of a beer and a paintbrush, with the text “I’m working on my dreams.”

We knew we had wild and ambitious goals for the year. We wrote them down and got to work doing the ugly behind the scenes stuff that no one likes to talk about. Over the next few months, I unexpectedly decided to make the big leap and quit my corporate job to focus on 27Teas full time.

Over the course of the next 9 months I navigated the challenges of my website crashing (only 2 days into full time entrepreneurship), a bad consignment deal where I lost over $200 in inventory, my payment processors shutting down, and a supplier sending me 1500 of the wrong bag 2 weeks before Christmas.

I learned how to use WordPress, how to use a MacBook, swept the cobwebs from my brain and got a refresh on accounting 101 (I have my MBA but this stuff is still foreign to me), I learned photoshop and basic graphic design.

I became a master at setting up an EZ-Up solo, loading and unloading my husbands pick up truck (although I did manage to knock a mirror off while backing up out of the garage one day), setting up a display in 20 min or less, and brewing mass quantities of tea.

Most importantly, I cried less in the last 9 months of the year than the first 3 (but yes I still definitely cried because I’m just a sensitive soul and I have learned that that’s OK). I was able to attend every doctors appointment and infusion session with my husband, not having to worry about calling in sick or using vacation time. I was able to undo most of the negative traits I had unintentionally acquired through corporate life. I had customers who wrote lengthy emails saying how much they loved my tea. I had people reaching out to me asking for my help and support in their own journey of quitting their corporate job and starting out on their own.

2019, thanks for being the year of change that I so desperately needed. You helped me rebuild myself and begin to discover who I really was. Thanks for making me more humble and bringing more fire to my soul.
2020, we have a lot of work to do. The road is still uphill, but now, I’m happy to say, I am confident enough to take the training wheels off and pedal a little harder.