Good Life Project - Emily McDowell: Irreverent Art With a Huge Heart.

Episode Date: November 28, 2016

Emily McDowell is a writer, illustrator, and entrepreneur who specializes in chronicling the human condition.In 2012, she left a successful career in advertising to launch her greeting card line, making cards for the relationships we actually have. Now a multimillion-dollar stationery and gift company, Emily McDowell Studio products are sold online and in nearly 2,000 stores worldwide.In 2015, Emily’s Empathy Cards, designed to help people connect around serious illness and loss, struck a nerve around the world and gave people a way into conversations that seemed brutally hard to begin and deepen into.Her first book, There Is No Good Card For This: What To Say and Do When Life Gets Scary, Awful, and Unfair To People You Love, will be released in January 2017.In today's conversation, we take a step back in time, explore the experiences in her younger life that were defining moments, revealing who she really was and how Emily began to connect with an irreverent blend of art and humor that touches so many.We explore what happened when she was diagnosed with cancer at a very young age and watched friends struggle to figure out how to be there for her. We dive into how she compartmentalized this experience, seeking to not let it define her, both as a person and, soon enough in art and business. We also track the launch and growth of her company and her recent move to rework the business in order to not just serve a "customer" need, but also give her what she needs, the ability to do the work that most lights her up.Mentioned in this Episode:Dance Neurosis Resume by EmilyEmily's famous quilt-making mom, Ruth McDowellEmily's talk at World Domination Summit 2016Emily's Awkward Dating CardHand Letterer Mary Kate McDevittStupid Cancer :: The Voice of Young Adult CancerBrené Brown - Researcher + Storyteller+++The 108: Conscious Business Collective - Entrepreneurship is lonely. To build what you're here to build, not just in business but in life, you need people. Nobody does it alone. The 108 is a conscious business collective of entrepreneurs helping each other rise. Move into 2017 with a powerful new family of allies, mentors, champions and collaborators as you work to build a living and a life on a profoundly different level. Learn more now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Jonathan. One of the things that I've learned over the years is that a pretty significant part of our community are what I call conscious entrepreneurs. And what I mean by that is, it's folks who are founders, and that could be of a business and organization, foundation, private practice, anything like that, that have three things in common. One is that you serve a genuine need. You really solve a problem and you deliver that and get paid for it. And so solving a problem and generating real profit is important to you. The second is that what you create actually serves as a true vehicle for the expression of your strengths, your values and beliefs, and your voice. So it lets you step into your fullest potential. And the third is that there's something bigger happening here. You're part of something bigger and you're serving some bigger need. And that's what I call a conscious business. And we've

created all sorts of experiences, programs, courses over the years designed to serve conscious business founders in a variety of ways. and amazing things have happened. We put pretty much everything on hiatus this year because we wanted to really deconstruct what we were doing and figure out how to bring more people together to serve them on a higher level. Because what we found is that not only do people need information and great advice and strategy and support, but there's a tremendous amount of isolation and loneliness for so many people who are in the business of founding conscious businesses. And we want to create a true community. So we've been at work at this for the better part of the year. And I'm really

excited to share that we are now live with this really powerful new experience. It's called the 108. And it is a conscious business collective. And if you want to know what that's all about, if you want to figure out whether it's in any way something that would be interesting for you, then you can either just click on the link in the show notes, or just head on over to goodlifeproject.com slash the 108. That's T-H-E and then the number 108. Check it out. See if it feels right to you. If it does, then awesome. And if not, then thank you for listening. And I'm going to kick it over to today's guest. Thanks so much.

It took me a while. I mean, it really took me a while to figure out how I wanted to be in the world and what of my wants were responses to things that I'd experienced in childhood and what were actually the things that I wanted and the kind of life that I wanted. My guest this week is Emily McDowell. She's been on my radar for a number of years. About five years ago, if you'd asked Emily what she was up to, she would tell you that she was an executive creative director in the advertising world. Fast forward, she is now the head of Emily McDowell Studios.

They have a line of cards, merchandise, all sorts of stuff. Really awesome, irreverent, funny, illustrated, blending all the things you wish you could say, but never could find a card to say it. And all the thoughts that are in your mind for those weird, difficult scenarios and relationships. And they're putting it out into the world. And what she's created has absolutely taken off. Now available, and I think closing in on 2000 retail locations. And she's created has absolutely taken off. Now available and I think closing in on 2,000 retail locations. And she's at a fascinating point of inflection. This has all happened literally in the last three to four years.

She's gone from creating a single card that took the online world by storm and has exploded into a really fast-growing company. And she's at a point where she's trying to figure out where to go next and what to do. We sit down and spend a whole bunch of time talking about her journey. Emily is also somebody who at the age of 24 was diagnosed with cancer and made a very deliberate decision after going through treatment that she didn't want it to define herself. Yet much later, she's circled back and created an entire line of cards called her Empathy Series that does not define her brand, but brings her unique lens, her irreverent wit and sense of humor

to helping people understand how to navigate the conversations around illness and just around scenarios that are really complex. Really excited to share Emily, her story, and what she's building and her amazing creative energy with you. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So we're hanging out here today, and we were just both in Portland, Oregon together, hanging

out at World Domination Summit. How did you like being on stage there? I actually really liked it. I was really surprised. I have done a bunch of speaking, but that was the biggest audience that I had ever spoken to, and it was the biggest audience that I'd ever spoken to without notes or a podium to sort of clutch and hide behind. And so I was nervous about it until I went on stage,

and then I wasn't, and it was fine. And it just felt like me talking about my life, which I know. So I was like, I don't really, I'm not super worried about memorizing a thing which I know. So I was like, I don't really, I'm not super worried about memorizing a thing. I know. It's also that, I mean, that audience is such, it's almost like they just they love you. They want you to rise. It's such a warm

audience. They were super warm and amazing and I felt like I could have just gotten up there and done an interpretive dance for 40 minutes almost and they would have been like, awesome, way to experiment. Which, I'm glad that that didn't come to fruition, because then there would be evidence on the internet of that. This is true.

And I've seen your famed resume for dance neuroses. Oh, have you? I was cracking up reading that. I have a lot of fun writing that. Because I'm checking off the things where I'm like, that's me too, that's me too. Well, it came out of this thing that my friend and I were talking about this, and I was working on a guided journal project that ended up getting shelved, and it might come back someday. But it was this thinking about the idea that as adults, there are so many beliefs that we have about ourselves that started to be formed very early, and that started to be formed in ways that like logically make no sense like i have a my stepson is 11 and he just finished uh sixth grade or he's he's in excuse me he just finished

fifth grade and fifth grade for me was like my worst year like i actually really liked middle school and fifth grade was like the year when everything kind of fell apart for me like socially at school you front loaded it i did i really did i it over early. So it was kind of in a good way. It was kind of good in some ways. But there was, I remember like, the fifth grade boys being like, you know, you're just really weird insults, like your hands are really puffy, like, or you're like, just these like things that make and I think about, and those were all things that I like internalized about myself. And I'm like, Oh, my puffy hands, you know, and like, to this day, I'm like, Oh, I can't wear this ring because my hand is puffy. And it's like, because I looked at Oliver, and I'm like, Oliver doesn't even know what's coming out of his mouth.

He's a total spaz. He just doesn't even like, he's just whatever. Because that's how you're supposed to be at that age. Exactly. You say nothing makes any sense. And so thinking about like a belief about yourself as an adult person with agency that came from something that came out of the mouth of a kid who was 11, who has no memory of having said that, and no idea that that could have a repercussion on someone like 30 years down the road. Right. And it just lingers with you. It just lingers with you. That's amazing. It just lingers with you. And so the dance thing was, you know, started really early.

And like, and I started talking with my friend about how I'm just a terrible dancer. And I've had this like sort of dance phobia. And so I made this neurosis resume that basically traced it back to its genesis of like all of the times I felt inadequate in dance and like put it together and sort of resume format to look at it. And it was really fun to write it. And it was also just a really interesting exercise to look at like how neuroses get formed and why and kind of break down like the logical fallacy of it, you know? Yeah, it was funny because I was reading and for you guys have to go, I'll make sure I drop a link

into the show notes. But it's really funny. It's like a resume, which just is like every moment where you had an opportunity to dance, from weddings to school dances, and just how the neuroses manifested in that moment. But it's so interesting, too, because so much stuff that happens to us in that window of years between, I guess for you, it started in fifth grade and sort of like middle school, high school. You can be like forties, fifties. And like,

it takes in the blink of an eye, it all comes flying. And you're like, wait a minute, haven't I grown? Like at some point, don't I get to just grow out of this? Right.

Like, don't I get to just not believe this anymore? Like, whatever. Be freed from the specter of like something a 10-year-old said to me once. Right, it's insane how stuff can just snap you back there like in so quickly. Yeah, it's kind of funny too,

because we see it in a sort of like a macrocosm because we do some large events too where people are living together. I mean, literally like in communal living or the bed part of four days. And that it's an amazing, amazing experience. And at the same time, you know, for some people it'll bring up stuff, you know, just sort of being around.

And so we have to create this expectation really fast that, you know, like it's cool. You know, like this is camp without all the adolescent angst because nobody cares anymore. And people realize that within the first 24 hours, but until they do sometimes those first few hours, some people, you know, it's like, you have to get used to that, that this is going to be okay.

Triggers all your stuff. Yeah. It's an amazing help. So we see it just stays with us. Yeah. And you're kind of like, how much therapy do we need? I know.

Right. And I feel like I'm like, I've had a lot of therapy. Like, I feel like I've talked about this a lot. Like, can the dance thing go away? And it's actually better than it used to be

because I did do a bunch of work around it. And even just breaking it down into doing the resume made me feel better about it. Just look at, what is this? None of this means anything. And who cares? But yeah, at a certain point you're like like why am i paying someone to talk about this can we just leave this right it's like well we'll cut off therapy and now i'm just gonna go

challenge myself to dance publicly for like every week right well this was like the other person who was speaking at uh wds right um michelle michelle i'm like a polar yeah polar yeah about how she challenged herself like every day for 100 days to just do something that scared the crap out of her right um and it's amazing what that like just doing it like the exposure therapy does to you oh my gosh totally yeah um all right so you grew up in western mass yeah i grew up just outside of boston so just outside of Boston. And what type of kid were you? What type of... Oh, I was a weird kid. I was a really precocious kid.

And I also had really low self-esteem. So it was kind of a weird combination. You know what I mean? I was just insecure about it, about being a person in the world. And so I kind of needed to prove to everyone how smart I was all the time, which is probably why everyone in fifth grade one day was like, we don't like you. And I had to kind of learn that lesson.

But I think that my parents were divorced and we lived with my mom and it was not a super easy childhood for many reasons. And so I was kind of always looking outside of home to get validation and find sort of adults to be close to um i remember very distinctly the moment that i realized that i was funny and that i could be funny and like that funny was a social currency so like i remember it super clearly i was it was the very beginning of seventh grade and it was spanish class and the teacher said something and I, instead of just responding in my head,

like I always had before in terms of making some smart-ass comment, I said it out loud, and the whole class was like, ah! And I was like, oh my God, I can do this. Because I never liked the way I looked. I never felt like I was pretty. I was always insecure about certain things. And then it was like, oh my God, I can be this. I can say the things that I think in my head out loud, and people will respond to them and like them.

And this is a way that I can be in the world that makes sense to me. So did that open the floodgates? It really did. It really did. And, it really did. And then, you know, I ended up really liking middle school and high school. Like, I was really social and, like, had just kind of a nice life. And so it was just, like, the opposite of how, like, most people's experiences go, you know?

But I had really, really close friends that I still have, like, to this day, and I'm 40. And I haven't lived in Massachusetts for since I was 18 and all of them went to college in New England and like grew up and married each other you know and like I left when I was 18 and went to Minnesota for school yeah and uh haven't lived there since but I still have friends from from high school were any of the friends that you're still friends with in that classroom with you in seventh grade um yeah actually did like do you do any of them remember that moment? No, and you know what? That's so funny because I just realized last year that this –

like I just put it together last year that there was a moment of genesis for this. Like I'd always sort of, you know, thought about, oh, yeah, like seventh grade was when I started to like be just more outgoing with, with other kids and just be more, you know, be more of who I was instead of kind of being nervous all the time about pleasing everybody and trying to, you know, like just being more just out,

out there. It's amazing. Right. Because they're, they're probably, probably everybody has like those few moments in their lives where something changed and, and maybe they didn't know it'd be at some point they reflect about like,

Oh, that was the moment. But it was very likely this innocuous thing where it wasn't a big thing. It was just something internally shifted and where you, that becomes a really pivotal moment for you. But, but I'm always curious whether other people around are aware of the importance of that moment.

You know, I mean, probably not because it was just, it wasn't like I stood up and did some big Jerry Maguire thing or anything. It was just like, I just made some dumb joke, you know? But then in my head, it turned into this whole like, oh, wait, this is, and, but everyone, of course, especially at that age, is just thinking about themselves.

It's like, you know, dance like no one is watching because no one is watching because everyone's worried about themselves, you know? And that's, so it's like, I don't think anyone's thinking about like, what's that kid, what's going on in the, in the psyche of that kid over there. You're too freaked out about yourself. Yeah. Like, you're like, oh my God. No, you're just like, are my shoes weird? You know, like, I don't know. But yeah, it is,

it is so interesting to think about that stuff, I think. Yeah. It's pretty amazing that you kept those, that type group of friends for so long also. Yeah, I was in a youth group actually in high school that started at a church, like Unitarian Church, so it wasn't religiously based. I really credit that for, I guess, I feel like I had deeper friendships in high school than a lot of people that I know did who came from different places. And it was, I really credit the people who, the leaders of this youth group who I'm still in touch with and who are now like 80. That's amazing. For creating an environment where they sort of supported us in talking about really important things like trust

and different elements of friendship and how to show up for other people and how to be a friend and how to um and how to engage with other people in a in a deeper way than just like some typical high school stuff and we did retreats like three times a year that were just kind of a weekend things and and it was like once a week and every week had like a different theme where we all like talked about stuff and it was it was a week and every week had like a different theme where we all like talked about stuff. And it was really cool because it really, by like my senior year in high school,

it was really popular. There were like 50 kids going to it. And my town, I had 200 in my graduating class. So it was like, you know, right. And, you know, and it was all high school. It was all grades. It was nine through 12. So it was like, you know,

but it was probably more juniors and seniors than younger kids. But it wasn't clicky. Like, it was so interesting that you could go to this and you could have, like, a kid who was a jock kid and a kid who was, like, a nerdy kid or whatever, and they would end up becoming friends. And all of the sort of high school like bullshit just kind of didn't apply. And even then, we knew that that was rare. Like even then we knew that that was like weird and kind of special. But I really and then I went to college and realized like, oh, most people didn't have an experience like this. And I really credit that with like, sort of teaching me how to be a person. Yeah, it's amazing. I think I often wonder

why there isn't a part of curriculum, which is sort of life skills. I wonder that all the time. Like the big questions, like the fundamental life skills, sort of like how do you interact with people? What really matters? You know, how do you define success in a way that actually resonates with you? All these different, and I think a lot of it traditionally, you know, it was, you know, society's definition, this is what's appropriate, just accept it. And I think a lot of it traditionally, it was society's definition, this is what's appropriate, just accept it. And then outside of that, the conversation always happened around some sort of faith-based organization. But now, so many people are peeling away. I mean, the fastest growing group of people in the country now are what they call the nuns because they're non-affiliated. So you wonder, it's such an important set of conversations and skills

that's kind of vanishing. I wonder what the long-term pain around that's going to be. I agree. I read, and I've never been religious in terms of organized religion person. And I grew up in a super liberal household in the Northeast. And so faith, like organized faith, has never been a big part of my life and i read an article recently that was about that that was that really sort of changed the way that i thought about religion saying that religion served as a framework for basically teaching us

how teaching us like ethics and teaching us how to figure out who we were and asking ourselves and each other those questions and kind of going deeper. And it sort of forced everyone to do that. And it also created community. And whether or not you believe in the thing that brought everyone together in that community or not, that wasn't really the point of it. I mean, the point of it was to just be in community.

And that vanishing is really scary you know so right yeah i mean it created a sense of like like you said an ethos and also a sense of belonging yeah that is we have to have i mean we can't flourish um without that and it's really it's that all all the main sources that are provided over generations are are either providing anymore or people are running from it. Yeah. And I wonder, like, we have to have that need filled. Like, where are we going to find it? Because we're not going to find it on the same level online that we can find it by just being, like, face-to-face with a small local community of people.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So it's really, I'm fascinated by that phenomenon and how we're going to solve for that need these days. Yeah. So at some point, when did your interest in sort of expression and art start to emerge? Oh, really, really young. My mom's an artist. And so we were very, like, there were a lot of things that we were not allowed to have

as kids because they, like, weren't creative. Like, we couldn't have coloring books, like, things that other kids had. Like, you know, any kind of a kit, like like anything that anything that like sort of solved any kind of creative problem for you like even partially my mom like no like you get a lump of clay you know like you get a yeah like we have a kiln here's a lump of clay like well you know and so i started art i mean i i've always loved making art but the funny thing was that I never thought that I would be an artist because my mom was an artist and she really struggled. Like she really,

my parents split up when I was six and my younger sister was four and my mom had stayed home for a while, like took, started staying home before I was born. And she actually went to MIT when there were very few women at MIT, like six, you know, like it was very new and worked at an architecture firm, but didn't work there very long.

Like didn't, wasn't senior in her career and then left and to have kids. And then, so looking back, trying to go back into the workforce, she was like, what can I do? Like,

I can't pay anything. That's even going to cover the cost of my childcare that, that, and so i need to find something to do to work from home um and so she decided that she was going to make art quilts my mom's a quilt maker and is now like sort of one of the best known quilt makers in the world and has stuff in major museums and is very like sort of credited as the leader of this sort of art one of the leaders of this

art quilt movement from the 80s and like is you know became very well known in that world but when she started she was like i'm just gonna do this and it wasn't a thing like it wasn't like oh i'm gonna go join this movement that's happening it was like i'm gonna start making quilts and people would be like quilts for your bed and she'd be like no quilts for the wall and that was like what and she also didn't really know how to make a quilt like she wasn't like she wasn't so it was kind of like she was like yeah she taught herself how to do it and then she ended up teaching herself like pioneering all that she wrote up she's written 10 books about pioneering piecing methods and all kinds of stuff because she used math from her mit background to

be able to figure out like how to do some really complicated things but as a kid I was like what can you just get a job like can you just you know like this is I don't this is really and we grew up in this really wealthy town so it was it was very we had no money I mean we lived on basically the child support that my dad was giving us you know and while she was establishing herself as an artist and as an adult now it all makes sense to me like i get why she did it i get why she felt cornered into you know feeling like she couldn't go back to work having to work for herself feeling like she couldn't work for someone else like all these things i understand now but as a kid it was like this is hard you know

you're just looking for security yeah and she was unhappy and we were really broke and so in my head i sort of was like well i don't want to be an artist because that represents like struggle. Like that represents a life that I don't want to have, a kind of life. And she ended up ultimately being successful, but it took 10 years. So I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. And plus my sister, my sister is a super talented artist. She's an illustrator.

She's not anymore. Now she is a jewelry buyer, but she went to school and like she did that whole like i'm gonna go to art school and do that path and so and i was always really academic so i was like i'm gonna go do something else and i in fact when i was a kid was very much like i'm gonna be a lawyer or something like i wanted to like climb a career ladder and I wanted something that represented like security and like professionalism to me. You know, like I wanted like this idea of like going to work in a suit. I was like very attracted to that because it felt like validation or like real or like secure or something, you know. And so the thought of being an artist, it wasn't interesting to me.

And I majored in English with a focus in creative writing in college and minored in art without even really intending to. I just liked taking art classes. And so I did, and then it just sort of became my minor, but it was pre-computers. So it was like fiber arts, you know, it was in like, you know, printmaking and stuff. Like it wasn't like learning skills that would translate into going and getting a design job or anything like that. So even then, in the back of your mind, this was just something that you were enjoying. It wasn't like, okay, I'm setting up my future. Absolutely not. There was zero.

And I feel like my undergrad, I mean, I loved where I went to school. I went to a school called McAllister in Minnesota, in St. Paul. And I loved where I went to school. And they have a really well-known international studies program and an economics program. And there were a lot of people there setting up their future. And I was really like, I'm making an action movie with my friend. You know, I mean, I was, I was like, I'm going to pay for this until I'm 40, which I did. I just paid my final student loans for undergrad. But I really got out of college and was like, what did I just do? Like, who, what do I, what, what is a job? You know? Right. what what what is a job you know right so uh so yeah it took me a while i mean it really took me a while to figure out how i wanted to be in the world and like what of my wants were responses to things that i'd experienced in childhood and what were actually the things that i wanted and

like the kind of life that i wanted yeah you know? Most people never even look at that until, you know, like much later in life, if ever. I mean, I think so many people actually never even explore that. Right. You know, they're kind of like, well, that's not what it's supposed to be about, which is so sad. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Did you go into advertising right out of college?

What was your next move? So I graduated from college, and it was the dot-com boom. It was the late 90s. And so I moved to San Francisco with my boyfriend, who had been my sort of on-again, off-again college boyfriend. And I got a job. And that was like when you could go to San Francisco and literally you could walk down the street, and people would be like, do you want a job? Do you want a job? Can you was like when you could go to San Francisco and literally like you

could walk down the street and people would be like, do you want a job? Like, do you want a job? Can you please come work at my company? We can't find like, and, but you would be looking for a place to live.

Like it was the, it was, um, on Craigslist, there would be apartmentless apartments and you would go and there would be like an open house where the, all of the 40 people that wanted to live there would meet the person who was like the master tenant and then they would like interview everybody and like decide who they wanted and it was like it was it was like a three percent vacancy rate it was crazy it's kind of

like it is now except it was you know that's expensive yeah so we moved there and i'd never been to california before and i went there walked out onto the street in san francisco and i was like this is where i'm supposed to live like it felt like my body was like, oh, all the things that didn't make sense, that have always felt uncomfortable to you about where you've lived before, all of those things. It was so weird, and I'd never had that kind of relationship with a place before. And yeah, so we did the dot-com thing, and I got a job that was, to this day, the best job I've ever had. I worked at a magazine called The Industry Standard, which was a weekly publication. Yeah, it was like an internet. It was like one of the first.

It started at the same time as Fast Company. Right. And it didn't survive, and Fast Company did. And it didn't survive because they didn't have a viable business model. Like, they gave away their magazine for free with the intention that eventually they would get people to subscribe to it. And they just had so much VC money that it didn't matter. And they had four different buildings in downtown San Francisco.

And it was like 500 people worked there. And I worked in their conference. They threw these executive conferences that were like, this one is for CMOs and this one is for CEOs. And they were always at a Ritz-Carlton and they were all over the world. And I became the person who was in charge of the look and feel of each conference and the materials. And so it would be like, this one's an Aspen, so I'm thinking wood and leather.

And there was no budget for anything. And so I would be like, I'd like to make the conference binder that everyone gets out of like hammered metal, you know, and they'd be like, okay. Like it was ridiculous. And then I got to go to each of these conferences and stay at the Ritz. And you know, when I was like 23 and I was like, working is awesome. Like this is so awesome. And then I got cancer. And I got Hodgkin's lymphoma, and I was diagnosed. And I couldn't afford to stay in San Francisco without a job.

It was not the kind of treatment that they were like, yeah, you can work through this. It was kind of like, no, you kind of have to just do this for eight months. You probably won't be able to go to work every day. So I had amazing health insurance. That's one thing that I'm so grateful for. I had just like the absolute best Cadillac health insurance plan. I mean, cause I was in the hospital for about three and a half weeks before I was

diagnosed. Cause it was really sort of complicated how it all came about. And by the time it was over, my medical bills had been like a million dollars and I paid like $4,000. I mean, it was like, it was, it was like, it was, it was amazing.

And I ended up getting, so I ended up going back to Boston actually for that year to get treatment at the Dana-Farber cause it was the best Hodgkin's hospital. And it was a network for me. And so my company, the industry standard, like to their credit, they were amazing.

They moved my boyfriend and he worked there too. And they moved us. They gave me a credit card, like an unlimited credit card, for the last month that I was in San Francisco. And was like, just every meal, whatever, just here. Stuff that's unheard of, and you wouldn't even, no one would do it now. And I think it was companies that learned their, everybody kind of learned their lesson from this late 90s boom and bust. But it was like, here here we'll just fund whatever you need like they moved us back they shipped our cars back they bought us like first class tickets

to go back to boston like they were just incredibly good to me and um and then they went under like six months later probably because they were making like those kinds of financial decisions but um it didn't affect my insurance and you know and so we just did this eight months in boston and then as soon as that was over we were like i gotta get out of here like can't live here and um there were no jobs to go back to in san francisco so we ended up going to minnesota which is where we'd both gone to college because it was like well it's super cheap there right you know we have a lot of friends there. We know it. We feel like there's a community there for us,

and we can just go back, and it'll be easy to live there. Before you made that move, after the eight months of treatment, what was the prognosis at that time? The prognosis was good. Hodgkin's is one of the, if you're going to get cancer, it's one of the better cancers to get, which you kind of hate hearing that when you have it because you're like, yeah, but still like, this sucks and I might die. But it really is like, you know, as on the cancer spectrum, like, fairly treatable. And so my body responded really well to the chemo too and radiation. And so the prognosis was good, you know, and it was just like, okay, well, you know, here's the protocol is you go get a CAT scan every three months for five years, and then they turn into six months. And then after 10 years, you don't get them and you just do this other thing.

And so that was kind of they sort of sent me on my way after that, which is odd, you know, to go from going to a place every day to have them be like, okay, like, see ya, like, you know, good luck. How did you make this sort of emotional, mental, psychological adjustment from that to just, okay. That's a really, I basically just was like, I'm going to pretend this didn't happen. I mean, there were so many lessons that I didn't want, that I felt at the time that I, I felt like I would be better off if I'd never learned that. Like, I remember feeling very clearly about like, you know, I feel like I'd be better off if I had never learned some of these things that I learned while I was sick about like the nature of how a lot of humans respond to

something scary and how just, there were just certain things that I was like, I just really wish I hadn't had that experience. So are you comfortable sharing like one and what one? Yeah, well, so I mean, the honestly, the biggest one, the biggest one was that I had, I had put so much stock in my friendships. I mean, my friendships were, like, really everything to me because they sort of replaced family in certain ways, and I felt like I had really deep friendships.

And when I got sick, a lot of my friends just bailed because they were so scared and didn't know what to do and had no idea how to, like to be with me as a sick person and had never been through anything like that before with a peer at all. And so just had no idea how to even be. And it wasn't everyone, but it was a couple of very close people to me.

Someone who had been my closest friend since the end of elementary school. And I had lived with his family for certain periods in high school. And it was just, he just couldn't do it. And at the time, I interpreted all of that as me just not being lovable enough or me not something about me just like not being good enough that i'd been if i'd been better in some way that people wouldn't have done it and it done that and then of course realizing later like no that's it has nothing to do with you it's it's just this is how people respond to trauma sometimes and when they don't have the

tools to respond in a different way yeah i. I mean, especially cause this was, you're in your early twenties. I just turned 24. So it was like, so most people at that point in their lives, no, no one has any like coping skills. Like nobody, you know, and people don't even know how to be adults, you know, yet at that point in their life, you're just trying to figure out like, how do I feed myself? It was just really tough. And that was just, that was the hardest part.

And it was really interesting because those, and I felt like no one talks about this. I felt like you read sort of cancer books and there wasn't like, there wasn't the other thing was that there were, now there are all kinds of really great organizations like Stupid Cancer, which I do a lot of work with, is an organization that is for people under 40 with cancer

and cancer survivors and they do conferences and they have conferences and like they have this great community and the only thing this was just it just was 2000 and so there was like some like message boards and like list serves and stuff for people but there wasn't like there weren't like young people communities or there was really no one that i could talk to about this stuff and be like is this happening to you too you know there was really no one that I could talk to about this stuff and be like, is this happening to you too? You know, there was just kind of like nothing.

And so all the things that you read about, like, you know, losing your hair and people and like women being like, Oh, I feel so unattractive. Or like, I, you know,

like my identity is gone. Like I, all this stuff, like, yeah, those things were true, but they, but I felt like,

well, my hair will grow back. And in a way it felt almost like a get out of jail free card. Like I didn't have to be concerned about how I looked because i kind of knew that i looked like shit and i was like i have cancer like i'm not i don't care about how i look like i don't really you know like i i can kind of not wear makeup and like not because i just feel like this is not a time like i don't have like whatever i do i'm gonna still kind of look like shit so i i can just not think about that right now and so it actually was kind of freeing in that way. Like, like, I just,

I'm just going to put that aside. But the relationship stuff was so hard. And I felt like no one talks about this, or I had never heard about it as being like a huge component of what happens when you get sick, or, you know, somebody, you lose a spouse or some and go through some kind of loss or trauma that other people find scary and so coming out of that i just felt like i just want to like put this behind me like i want this to i don't want this to like color the rest of my relationship i don't want this to make to to um inform negatively my relationships going forward like i don't want to be afraid to trust people i don't want to be afraid to trust people. I don't want to be afraid to, you know,

be my whole self with people. And so like, I'm going to just like put this away kind of in a box. And I was also super paranoid about, I didn't ever want to sort of identify as like a cancer survivor publicly because I felt like I was really paranoid about that becoming my identity. Like, and I just really was like, no, I just don't, I just feel like this is a thing that

happened and I don't want to, and I'll talk about it if people want to talk about it. Like, I don't want to, I'm not going to like ever pretend it didn't happen, but I also don't want to lead with it ever. And for whatever reason, I was just really paranoid about that. And so the irony was like, you know, then however many years later, 15 years later, when the Empathy Cards thing came out, it was 300 major news organizations all over the world being like, cancer survivor, Emily McDowell. And I was just like, oh, God, like it was really. It's the very thing that. Yeah, it was so interesting.

And I was just like, oh, okay, like, I guess here it is. You know, like, I guess, I guess we're doing this now. But then it was fine. I mean, then it was like, yeah, it felt fine. Lean into something new. Lean into something new. And so I went to Minnesota, did various things for a couple years. In fact, started, this is like a story that not a lot of people know. I really had no idea what I wanted to do. And my sister had just graduated from college, and I went to Baltimore, and we went to a bead store. Anyway, the upshot being that I made a necklace out of beads at this bead store with my sister. And back in Minnesota, I'm wearing the necklace, and I'm shopping for a wedding gift at a store.

And the woman who works there says, hey, I love your necklace. Where'd you get it? And I said, oh, thank you. I made it. And she said, are you a jewelry designer? And I said, yes. And I was unemployed. Like, I was temping at my old school, like, calling an alumna and asking for money.

And so she was like, well, you know, we have five stores. And I bet our buyer would really like to take a look at your stuff. It looks like it would really fit in our store. So here's the buyer's card. If you, you know, whatever, want to get in touch with her, like, here's her information. So I was like, hmm, like, you know, making this necklace was really fun and easy. And I bet I could make like a ton of necklaces. Like I can totally do this. And there and there was no Etsy this was this was like pre any of that stuff yeah and so I I went to the I went to a bead store in Minneapolis and I just bought a bunch of stuff and I made a bunch of stuff and I called the buyer and I made an appointment and I was going to try to like

bluff my way through it like I was like all right I am gonna like just just study up on like all of this terminology and learn how much to mark everything up and all that stuff. So I went and did a whole bunch of research and was like, all right, I'm going to just pretend that this is what I do. And so I went in there, and that plan fell apart in 10 minutes because she started asking me questions that I didn't even know what the question was, let alone the answer. And so I sort of came clean and was like,

I've actually never done this before, but I made all this stuff. And they were so kind, and they were like, we don't care. Your stuff is awesome and we want to sell it in here, so we don't really care if you've ever done it before. So I then started selling jewelry in these five stores and then they introduced me to one of their sales reps and so then I had a rep in that little area just in the upper Midwest.

And so the first year that I was doing jewelry, I started just doing that full time and I made like $40,000. And I was like, oh my gosh, like all I do is sit on the couch and watch HBO in my underwear and like bead things. Right, and making legit money.

And I'm making like money. And right, because I was like 25 and I was like $40,000 in Minnesota. It was like, oh, you know, this is, but it started to get bigger. Like it started to, the demand started to eclipse what I could just do. And so I was like just sitting and beating and beating and beating all the time.

And so I knew nothing about business. And I was like, like, I guess what I needed to do is start like hiring people or like outsourcing this or like figuring out how to do this. And that all, that whole thing sounded so daunting and so scary that I was just like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I just know that this isn't challenging my brain enough to like, I'm kind of bored.

Like I'm, you know, like I'm just making, I'm just doing a repetitive task all day. This isn't quite what I want to do. And I looked into, so to be in advertising, you need to go to portfolio school. Like you can't just get a job as a junior at an ad agency with a degree. You have to like go to a special school and like get a with a portfolio together and then and then submit it to an agency and it's super competitive to get your first job and i'd actually looked into that school because there were a couple in minnesota but it was like 30 grand for two years and i was like i don't you know i'm not going to take on any more debt

and then the one of the big schools in Minnesota did a scholarship contest. And it was not a normal thing for them. They just did it like this one year. And it was like, you, the winner gets a full ride. And it was an assignment. If you wanted to be a writer, the assignment was to write a radio spot, which is super hard. It's the hardest thing. Writing radio is really hard. And if you wanted to be an art director, the assignment was make some marker comps of print ads for Minnesota winter tourism. And I was like, that sounds easy. Like that sounds way easier. Cause I was like, I don't know whether to be an art director or writer. Cause I'd sort of had both in my background and I liked both. And I was like, I'm going to be an art director. Cause that assignment is way easier. And I feel like I would do way better at that.

And so I had said, and I remember saying to my boyfriend, like, well, if I get this money, which is a super long shot, I'm going to go to ad school and go into advertising. If I do not get it, I'm going to figure out how to build this, turn this into a company. And I never thought that I would get the money. And then I did. And so. You had to make a choice. I had to make a choice.

And I was like, all right, like, I guess this is what i'm supposed to be doing you know and and i get to go to the school for free and i get this opportunity so i'm going to do this and so i finished in a year and a half because i was a little bit older i was like 26 at the time and most of the other people were coming straight out of undergrad so i'd had a little more experience with computer programs and stuff at that point. When you made the decision, because at the time you're making decent money doing jewelry. Yeah. Was there a moment where you hesitated to shut that down? Not really.

The big difference between then and then starting a company that I started in my 30s was I didn't trust my own judgment then. And I didn't trust that I knew what I was doing. And I didn't trust that like, there were just, it was too was too scary at the time i was too young i knew too little about business and i still was clinging to that sort of vestiges like advertising felt really attractive to me because it was like here's a ladder you can climb like here this is like a track for a career that someone else designed that is like a predestined thing it's like the whole thing from your child whole thing for my child like this is like. And I felt like this jewelry thing is cool,

but I didn't feel secure. I didn't, you know, and I could get much better health insurance if I was working in a company, which was another sort of factor for me. And so I was like, it was kind of a no-brainer. Like, I got the money and I was like, all right, like, peace out, jewelry.

Like, that was cool, but this is going to be like my real career. Like, I'm going to start this adult job now. And so when I was 27, I got my first agency job, and that took me back to San Francisco. That was how I ended up getting back to San Francisco, was getting recruited and hired by an agency there. So that was in our direction. And you ended up staying there for close to a decade, right? In the industry, yeah.

And then I moved to LA in 2006, and I've been in LA since. And so I worked at various agencies in Los Angeles. But yeah, I was about four years in and really feeling like I really wish that I'd been a writer. But you can either be one or the other. You're thinking back to that radio spot where I was just art director. Yeah, exactly. And it was literally that was what made that call for me. Like it was this one thing that ended up setting a whole career in motion. And so you usually don't get to switch. And I had a very cool boss, who I was working on ESPN at the time, which was almost all like low budget comedy TV. So for an art director,

there's not that much to do if you don't write also. And so I was writing sort of as many scripts as my copywriter partner, like he and I were writing them all together. And it was clear that I was like just really enjoying writing and like good at it. And my boss said to me, you know, we need another writer in the department and we were thinking about hiring one, but I wanted to ask you first if you'd rather switch, and then we'll hire an art director instead to fill your old job.

And so I ended up doing that. And then ended up being a writer for the rest of the time and sort of coming up to creative director through being a writer. I liked that so much better. It was just so much less tedious like a lot of art a lot of being an art director and advertising is working with a comp for 12 hours to make it like exactly right and it was a lot of like banner ads at the time because it was like early you know 2005 like make this banner into like 12 steps so that a client understands that a guy walks across the screen and then like puts the thing down and it was just it felt it was a lot of like late nights for like not a lot of return,

you know, like it was just a lot of sort of tedium and writing felt better to me and easier and like more time efficient, you know? Right. So by the time you work your way up doing that, like what were you, what did you spend most of your days doing? Coming up with ideas for campaigns and working, you know, everything from writing tv to doing 360 which interactive is what they call i'm trying to think of like a like a better term for it now because it's like i've been out of the industry for so long but it now i think is just ads like everything is just

like uh an app can be an ad some kind of online game interactive thing can be an ad and that stuff was like just kind of like it was a thing but agencies still had like an interactive department versus a traditional department yeah and now they don't anymore like now it's all integrated and it's all like 360 and just an ad is an ad and you get very few assignments i think now that are like write a tv spot because usually they start with the idea and then develop the media from there. And the old model was to buy the media first and then be like, have an idea that fits with this media. And I think that they're doing it differently now. Yeah. So what's going on with you personally in your mind as you're like building this career in advertising

in your life? I was really not happy and trying very hard to convince myself that I was liking it and that I was happy because I worked so much. And it's not like this everywhere, but I had sort of a series of jobs where it was, you know, working Christmas and working Easter and canceling vacations and not having weekends and all of this stuff, like putting in, I was putting in so much and I was really giving it kind of everything I had and really trying weekends, and all of this stuff. I was putting in so much, and I was really giving it everything I had, and really trying very, very, very hard. I wasn't bad at it. I was fine at it, but I was never superstar material in that career.

But I was good enough at it that I kept getting promotions. But it always felt like a huge struggle. Like it always felt very hard. And I kept thinking like, I don't want this giant element of my life to just feel like a struggle all the time. Like, I feel like there's a way to have a career that doesn't feel like this. And I feel like there has to be, you know, but I had no idea what that was or what that would look like and i put so much time in that it was really hard to look at it and be like maybe this isn't the career for me because i also like when you get to a certain point you're making money and you're like

well what am i gonna do like now i'm in my 30s and i don't want to start at the bottom again another industry i don't even know what that industry would be this is what i know how to do and what's been so interesting to me after having been out of the business now for like four years is that I had no idea that the knowledge that I had from being in that business was not knowledge that everyone had because I was surrounded, we all were surrounded by everyone who knew the same things we did. And so I didn't really understand how valuable that knowledge would be translated into another industry. And the way that I understand marketing and branding and how to build a brand and how to think about how people think and all of these strategy and all these things that I learned working in that industry, I came out of it. And it was a while before I was like,

oh, everyone in advertising had those things, so it didn't feel special. But actually, this knowledge is super valuable, and it super translates outside of this industry. And I think there are a lot of people in that industry that are not happy. There are people who are, and I think it's the kind of thing where you either have to love, love, love it, and if you love, love, love it it's like the perfect job for you like it's just amazing and

you have like just an amazing time but if you don't love it that much because it takes so much out of you it's really hard to do it yeah and a lot of people I know got to a point in their careers where they felt like I wish I could leave but I don't know what else I could do the only thing I'm qualified for is this yeah and it's like not even being able to see like, actually, you have so much knowledge that translates to so many other things. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

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available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. So what was the moment for you where where the things flipped and you're like huh it was starting to do cards and realizing that the place that i came from which was i was very i got really used to thinking about solving problems and like you know because a successful ad convinces you that the product that you're buying will solve your problems, because that's what drives all of our little human minds all the time is like getting our problem solved. And if you have a product that actually solves a problem, it's way easier to sell it than if you have to make up a problem and then convince people to have it and then

sell it back in. And so I started to think about that and just having that awareness, like having that kind of awareness and looking at an industry like greeting cards that had been the same for so many years and that there ended up being a lot of opportunity to sort of shake things up and disrupt it and do something different. But it was all based in psychological awareness

of how people think and what people respond to. And I certainly would not have had that if I didn't have so many years of training, working in advertising and thinking about that. And so it was like, oh, I can actually apply this to create something that solves a problem instead of an ad that solves a problem. So you start to create cards when you when you create that first one, in your mind, is this a test? So is this like a test on a potential path that takes you out of what you're doing? Okay, so it was very deliberate from the beginning. It was deliberate from the beginning. And I was freelancing still when I quit my job, feeling like I really don't want

to go back to a full-time job. I really want to use this to transition out. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to freelance for a while and see if I can figure it out and not work all the time for the first time in however many years and just see if I can give myself some space to figure it out. And so that's what I was doing.

I had this Etsy shop that I started just kind of to mess around and sell prints of my illustrations that people had started to ask for so you're still doing art in the background during all like you're creating your own stuff i didn't have time to do it when i was working in advertising and it wasn't until i started freelancing that i started drawing again and it was like and it was in an effort to decide and figure out what i actually wanted and and because i read some article somewhere about like if you

have no idea what you want to do with your life, like try going back to what you liked to do as a kid. And so I started to think about like, well, what did I do when I was by myself? Like, what did I enjoy doing? And the answers were writing stories and drawing and being creative. And we always had art supplies in the house

and we always had that environment where it was creativity was super encouraged. And so i started drawing like i started drawing little comics and i started doing hand lettering which wasn't really a thing yet there were some people to mary kate mcdevitt and like there were some people who were doing it but it wasn't like not like now and not like now and i'd always love to do that like that was what i did in meetings when i was bored and what i did in school when i was bored in the margins and so i was started to really do those things.

And then Pinterest, I was, I was sort of another task where Pinterest then was introduced, like Pinterest started. And in the very beginning, when there weren't a lot of people on Pinterest, you could pin something. And then that thing would be up on the homepage long enough for people to

like repin it and repin it. And so Pinterest was just getting started right around the time that I started doing these illustrations. And so I started posting them on Pinterest to see what would happen. And people started repinning them like all over the place. And it ended up like Tyra Banks, like tweeted a picture of one of them that she found on Pinterest and, you know,

and it was like, Oh, like of course. And I didn't sign anything. I like didn't know, you know, I was just so dumb. So there's like all this work floating around out there so nobody knows it's you uh yeah and right so so but because i wasn't even thinking about it that way i was

just thinking like i'm doing a thing i'm doing a test kind of like and it was like oh my god people really like this and this was really fun for me to make and okay so this is cool so let me i'm just going to open a little ety store and I'm going to go buy like a $500 printer and start printing these prints for people. And so that's what I was doing. And I was doing that at night, doing it on the side, you know, doing it in between jobs, because I would be working for two weeks and then take a week off and then get another job. And started to do that. And then started thinking, you know, I miss writing. Like, because I was mostly doing little comics and I was mostly doing and like, started doing some lettering, but doing it with like public domain quotes and things like that, like just to practice the lettering.

And then I was like, you know, I really would like to do my own stuff. But I felt like I needed to have like a purpose behind it. It felt like I want to be able to sort of think about this in an emotional way yeah and that was where cards came in was because i was like you know this is a thing that i always have trouble finding things that reflect my reality and like my personality and my relationships and i feel like there's an opportunity to do something cool here and when i started i mean i and i hesitated a bit because i was like how do you make money selling something that costs $4? Right.

Like that was, I mean, it was really. Like your money's going right back to when you were picking against it. Exactly. Like I was like, you know, and I'm picturing, and I'm thinking about it in this very small way. Like I'm thinking about it like I print a print and I can sell it for 25, 30 bucks. And why would I ever want to sell something for $4? You know, like I have to sell so many more of that thing. I don't know.

And so really the first card was totally a test. And I had 100, which was the minimum, printed at a local printer. And I was like, well, maybe I'll never sell 100 cards. But maybe I will. And I really felt, and I remember saying this to friends at the time, if this gets in front of the right people, like I know people will buy this if they see it. Because like this speaks to so many relationships that are not being spoken to.

Was that the now famous Valentine's Day card? Yeah, it's a Valentine's Day card for the person you're kind of dating, but not really. Which at the time there was nothing for that. And I was like, I just feel, I felt super strongly that like this will sell if it gets in front of the right people. And what I thought would happen was

I'd put it in my Etsy shop and like 10 people would see it and they would just buy the crap out of it. Like 10 people would be like, oh my God, this is the most perfect thing I've ever seen. And they would buy it and be super happy. I didn't anticipate what ended up happening, which was it went viral and,

and ended up launching my company. But I did feel like very sure that it would connect with people. It was just the piece of, I wasn't sure at the time how to get it in front of them because I didn't have a social media follow. I didn't have anything. I mean, it was just,

you know, me drawing pictures in my bedroom. Yeah. But like, I mean, clearly though, that must have signaled to you it's like wow this is writing i mean it validated your hunch about the state of the green card industry you know and at the same time must have also validated to you like there's for whatever reason you have a lens on the world the ability to express what people are feeling but aren't saying in a way that is just landing. And it's time to do more of this.

Yeah. And it was like, and this was so fun. Like, this didn't feel like a struggle. You know, this didn't feel hard. This felt like this was fun and I could do this all day, every day. And so I was like, wait a minute. Like, I can do this. And I feel like I, at this point in my career have a very good sense of like,

what is going to be good and what's not good. And I have no problem killing my own ideas. Cause I've done that now for a million years. And the idea of being able to make those kinds of decisions on my own with no clients and, you know, and, and suffer the consequences.

Like if I put something out and it fails, it's on me. But I would, I was like, suffer the consequences like if i put something out and it fails it's on me but i would i was like i would so much rather be here and be doing that than be relying on someone else to make those decisions at this point you know that's so interesting because it's it i mean it signifies not just the shift for you to like not just a career shift but it's really like a moment where you're looking back on all those assumptions from your childhood and like the grasping for security and letting somebody else be in control and create the container to saying, you know what, actually, that's not necessarily the future I want.

Totally. Yeah. So from there, I mean, this takes off. You start to build this really amazing company and you're creating a ton of stuff. You're hiring people, you've got inventory, you've got employees, you've got a warehouse at some point and, um, incredibly successful and doing a lot of stuff that you love. And we had a really interesting conversation a couple of days ago where it sounds like you also, you came to a time where you're like, okay,

I'm successful from the outside looking in, from the inside looking out. But when you kind of had a moment where you zoomed the lens out and you're like, huh, let me just take stock of what's going on now. Am I still happy? Am I doing the job within the company I've now built that allows me to completely flourish? Talk me through this a little bit and the decisions you made. Yeah, so by the end of 2015, I had 15 employees, and we had a warehouse in Las Vegas, where all of our stuff was being shipped out of, and I had a whole staff there. And I had a house that I bought in Los Angeles that was serving as our office. And hire more people, like a lot more people. And that my role was if the company was going to grow, I was going to have to hire a creative department and become like a creative director, or I was going to have to hire a COO or some kind of business partner. Because really, I was spending most of my time running the business and putting out fires and handling business problems.

And even with my wonderful staff in place who are awesome, it wasn't enough. There was too much work and too many things to think about for the number of people who were working on it. And one of the things that I learned about myself in this process was that I didn't love managing a lot of people. Like even if I really liked them, which I did, I liked all of them, and I still do. And even if the people were great, I did not like managing a big team. I didn't really like having to be the boss I mean I liked being I liked making the decisions But I didn't like I didn't like being the one who had to like

Be like oh, yeah, we have to have a staff meeting Let me like make that happen and force it like just I just got to a point where I didn't Like what my day-to-day was because my day-to-day was very much about running the business and then at night When everyone left was when I would try to jam in all the creative because I was still writing and illustrating everything Because that was what I loved to do the most. And I felt like the creative was suffering. I felt like, you know, I don't have enough time to really do this. And there are all kinds of new products I want to develop and all kinds of stuff that I want to do. And all of that takes so much effort trying to new product development takes a lot of time and

a lot of resources. And it was clear that we were going to grow out of our warehouse really fast. And I was just like, I don't know how to even project what we're going to do. I don't know how to like, I don't know how to even make projections. And my, even my accountant was like,

I don't know how to tell you how to make projections because nothing that this company has done so far has like made any sense. Like nothing has followed any kind of logical trajectory. So I don't really know even how I can like, what to tell you at this point, it's just your gut. And the creative was really suffering. And I felt like, this is not we're not going to have a company like if I can't make the work and make it good, like there is no company, you know, this is what's driving the whole thing. And the irony is that now I don't have the time to do it. And then I was like, well, I could hire this person as COO. And I was like, oh, like, it just sounded like so much work. It just sounded terrible. And then I started to look at

our numbers and the wholesale side of our business was about 60% of our revenue, but it required 10 times as much infrastructure as the website, as people who just buy things from our website and we made way more profit on buying things from our website because it was just a much more streamlined thing and we sold everything at a retail price and the wholesale was just i mean it was just like the amount of work that went into supporting having 1800 stores was just like astronomical and so i started to think like i mean i was really looking at like should we just stop making every other product besides cards like because it's really hard to manufacture things like should we just decide we're not going to do wholesale anymore what

would happen if we did that what would happen if we you know and so i was going through like a million different scenarios in my head and with our and with my head of sales and my head of operations and we were just talking about what do we do here. And then I actually had a really interesting opportunity, which is a company in Seattle called Madison Park Group, and they partner with, I think they have eight different brands that they partner with right now, where they ended up taking on,

and they work differently with each partner depending on the partner needs, but what they did for me was they ended up taking on the logistics and manufacturing for the wholesale side of my business. And so we took all of our wholesale inventory, which was taking up 75% of the warehouse because it's just volume-wise is so much, shifted it to Seattle, which is where their warehouse is. And a couple of my employees went over and started working for them, doing their exact same jobs. And so now basically when the phone rings, it goes to, from a store, it goes to Seattle and all of the customer service is handled from Seattle

and all the shipping goes out of Seattle. And I have a product development team there that I work with now. And it's still me. There's no creative, they're not doing any kind of creative control. It's just me being like, hey, I want to make this. Can you guys help me figure out how to make this? And they will, they have a lot more experience in working with different vendors than I do, a lot more experience in working overseas than I do.

And so it's much easier for them to find a vendor in China or India or wherever that can make a thing that I want to have made and have it be an ethical factory and have it be in a way that I want to have it made. And then they front the money for the purchase order and I get a back end percentage from all of the wholesale, basically. Right. Yeah. And the net result is that you get more space

to go back to doing the thing that, A, you love to do, and that if it's not being done at the highest possible level, nothing else matters. Exactly. Exactly. And it's scaling. It allows me to scale the company in a way that I couldn't have done before.

We have five or six new categories of products coming out in the next four months that I never could have done on my own. Which is amazing because when people talk about scaling stuff, a lot of them means the assumption very often in business is part of what you're going to do is have to change roles. And you're going to have to step out of being the artist or the technician or the chief IP creator and be the CEO and be like the head of operations. And I've seen so many people do that and actually build successful companies and end up building a company that they hate going to. Totally. And it even happens within advertising, too. Like when the only way to become a creative director is to be really good at being a writer or an art director and being a creative director is a totally different job. Right. And

so what ends up happening is a lot of people get promoted and like, it turns out that they were way better at being a creative than they are as a creative director. Or it turns out that they don't actually like it and they really miss doing the work and that they don't actually like, you know, selling stuff and, and flying around and talking to clients and like doing that and managing teams they actually would just rather be like sitting in a room writing scripts but it's you don't know until you get there yeah and it's a totally different job and i think and that happens a lot like where it's like you do so well doing a thing that then you get promoted or you build a company you build something that then you are like wait a minute my role here is totally different than when I started.

But I think that the really cool difference is that if you're doing this for, there's a prescribed path in another company or industry where this is the next step. There is no left or right. It's like, this is the next step. Whereas when you're creating it yourself, I love what, A, you recognized that you actually had the opportunity to choose to do it differently, you know, and to actually reclaim the part of it that you liked and then literally create the job that you wanted and sort of like pull it back. And at the same time, still grow your company, still scale your business, still. It just took sort of like looking at it differently.

Yeah. And I had various options to do that too. Like it was like, we could have done X, we could have done Y, we could have done Z, you know, it was just figuring out what the best move was, because it was really clear that what I was doing was just overwhelming me and not working. And it's so funny, because I said to you earlier, like, I ran into one of my best friends from college downstairs in the coffee shop when I was on my way up here. And the last time I saw him in person was when I was here a year ago. And he was like, you just seem so much happier like you just seem like

last time I saw you you were so feel it for sure you were so stressed out and like you were just it just was clear and I think it was clear to you too he was like we didn't really talk about it but it was like clear to me that what you were doing wasn't like sustainable for you you know and it was clear to me then but I didn't see the path out of it I just saw like I got to get through this and I don't know even what that looks like or what that means. And I had just signed a contract to write a book on top of everything else. And I was just like, what did I do? What have I done?

Like, what, who, what, you know? Yeah, it's amazing. Sometimes we just need to like figure out a different path or just let go of the assumption that there is a prescribed way to actually make this happen. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Kind of coming full circle to a certain extent. Also, earlier in the conversation, we were talking about the fact that

when you're going through cancer treatment, you had this big awakening about how people just don't understand how to relate. But you didn't want that to define you. And you also made some really interesting deliberate choices because when you started the card company and we started to succeed, you could have immediately created a line of cards that were all like your empathy cards, but like with your particular form of let's make this real, you know, but you chose not to do it until much later in the process.

Yeah, I mean, that was super deliberate. And it was because I knew that the idea that I had to do a different kind of sympathy card, I knew that I could write them in a way that we're going to address some problems and resonate with people. And I knew that if I did it right, that it could be a really big idea. And I also knew that it would be really different than anything that existed out there. But what I really didn't want was to be pigeonholed and to have my whole company turn into like a cancer card company.

I really felt like my brand was bigger than that. And I felt like there were a lot more different kinds of problems and things that I could do. And it also was like, I don't want to be in that space all the time. Like it's kind of depressing to be in that space all the time, to be honest. Like I want to be able to sort of be there, but also be in a space where we're talking about like love and relationships and more fun stuff or things that are other like less critical problems that need solving but that are still interesting you know and i was worried that if i started off and my brand became known at the same time as those cards were becoming known that those two things would become inseparable that was just such a big thing that it would sort of eclipse everything else.

And I also felt like this is a big idea and I was watching the trajectory of my business and every month it was just more and more and more people buying the stuff, following me on social media, sort of just growing the platform. So I was like, if I hold on to this for a year, I will have the opportunity to really, I think, get this in front of a lot more people when we do launch it. And in fact, what happened, and I really,

the reason, one reason that it was so successful, the empathy cards were so successful immediately and just like caught fire was that Brene Brown had become a fan of my work before I launched empathy cards. She really liked what I was doing. She liked, like she had bought some stuff. I'd sent her some stuff like we had, and then we just sort of became friends over email. We have some friends in common. So when I did empathy cards, I sent her some before I released them. It wasn't with the intention of her posting about them. It was just like, I think you will love these.

This is what I'm doing now. I'm super excited about it. I'm just giving you a preview of it because I think they're super up your alley. And I know that you'll really like it. And you like my work. And she was like, oh my God, these are amazing. I want to write a whole blog post about them and like send it out to all, everyone that is on my subscriber list. And that's like millions of people, you know? And I was just like really blown away by that. And she did. I mean, she, the morning that we released them, she sent out this email to all

of her subscribers that was about them that was just like look at these things they just came out look at what they do here's the blog like read what she said about them like this is pretty awesome immediately people started posting them on social media and then 24 hours later was when all of the you know slate and Huffington Post and those guys started picking it up and then 24 hours after that started to be like NBC Nightly News and Good Morning America and the TV people. Yeah but what's so cool is

I mean because I guess because of the time that you spent in the ad industry you understood that cycle and even though you got this massive onslaught of you know these expanding ripples of larger and larger media that were great for the company, your plan worked perfectly, which is you were established enough already as something bigger than that that it didn't define the entire brand anymore. Right. It didn't define the brand. And there are a lot of people that associate us with that, and that's fine.

I don't mind that at all. I don't mind the association, and I'm actually very proud of the association. But we were. It's fine. Like, I don't mind that at all. You know, it's not, I don't mind the association. And I'm actually very proud of the association. But we were, it's true. We had enough other products because we had a lot of other, you know, we had 150 other products at that point. And so it was enough of a thing. And Brene, you know, knew my work totally outside of that context. Like she, you know, had bought our other cards. And so she wasn't thinking of us as that company.

And so she didn't position in her email, didn't say like, there's this company that is about, that's all about cards for grief and cancer. It was, so that plan did work. And the part of the plan that was, let me wait, because if I had just done it, if I'd come out of the gate with this, I wouldn't have known her, I wouldn't have known any of the other people who posted about it. I mean, it's amazing to see, because when you look at what you've created, and sort of the breadth, and you know, like the thousands of stores it's distributed in, and the expanding product lines,

and all this, I think the immediate assumption is, wow, she's been in this for a couple of decades. And it's happened astonishingly. I mean, you could look back and say, no, you've actually been building to this your whole life. But yes, I have. I've been building the skills required to do it my whole life. But the actual infrastructure of the company has only, this has only existed for like three and a half years. Right. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, do you ever sort of just like stop for a moment and look around and say, wow. Yeah, I do it all the time. And, you know, it's my life, especially even like a year in was so, was 180 degrees from what it had been a year before. And one of the things that this has really taught me is, and maybe other people don't think this way, but I know that for me, when I thought about things that could happen quickly that would change your life, it was always in the context of bad things.

Like someone dies that's close to you and your whole life changes, or like the bottom falls out or your house burns down or like whatever, like some tragic thing that ends up changing the trajectory of your life. And I never really thought about it in the context of like a good thing, you know, unless it's like winning the lottery or something.

But like, I never really could have imagined you could have a year of your life. It's like putting a blindfold on you and spinning you around and just sending you off in a whole different direction. And I'd never really thought about that or certainly hadn't experienced it. And so to have that happen was just, it was insane. I mean, it is still insane. And to think about how different my life is now than it was five years ago is kind of astonishing. Yeah, which actually feels like a good place to come full circle. So the name of this is Good Life Project. So if I offer that phrase out to you, to a good life what does it what does it mean to you what comes up it means to spend your time

in integrity like spend your time doing something that you enjoy and also feeling good about what you're doing and and what you're contributing to the world and feeling just feeling like you're living without without any kind of regrets feeling like you're living without you know that if you died tomorrow you wouldn't look back and say like, oh, I wish I'd done this or that or the other thing. You know, to just be, it means being present in who you are and living that way. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening.

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