3 lessons I'm carrying into 43
On future, surrender, and relationships.
Hi, it’s Melissa, and welcome (back) to “your founder next door”, a weekly publication with stories and tidbits of my human journey bootstrapping eWebinar to $5m ARR. No BS, just straight-up truth bombs on what it’s like to build a company without an abundance of resources or friends in high places.
Last weekend was my 43rd birthday, which got me thinking about the past 12 months and what I want to take with me into the next year.
It’s been a significant one because I spent it recovering from my burnout the year prior and integrating everything I’d learned about myself. I rediscovered my passion for building startups and decided to (re)commit to my company. Somewhere along the way, I rekindled my purpose, drive, and ambition.
Only recently do I feel fully submerged back in eWebinar, after almost giving up on it entirely.
As birthdays have always been a time for reflection for me, here are the 3 lessons that mattered most…
1. We can design our future. 🎨
Whatever we decide to become, every choice we make moves us toward making it real. In that way, we can design our future.
The most important thing I learned during my burnout was that I’d carried a belief my whole life that I wasn’t good enough. That belief became the foundation for how I saw myself and the decisions I made.
Subconsciously, I had decided I wasn’t smart enough, capable enough, or connected enough to build a successful company. I didn’t believe I deserved the success I had always dreamt of, so everything became a hard problem I wasn’t equipped to solve. Deep inside, I never thought I could get there.
When that’s your starting point, it doesn’t matter how hard you try or how much you work. Every failure becomes evidence, so you stop short, and the whole thing turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can decide the opposite just as easily. That you are smart enough. Capable enough. That you deserve everything you’ve ever wanted, and that everything you want, you already have.
From there, an obstacle is just a task to figure out. A failure is just another thing to get through. Everything gets lighter because you’re on a course you’re going to finish someday instead of a race you’re not sure you’ll complete.
The shift sounds simple, but it takes an enormous amount of self awareness, inner work, and self love to execute. It’s not an on/off switch. It’s a daily practice of reprogramming.
2. We cannot control the outcome. 🌊
And yet, no matter how badly you want something to happen, you don’t control the outcome. You can only do your best. The rest isn’t up to you.
I can count the times I’ve tried to force something, and every time, life eventually reminded me why I shouldn’t have. Whether it’s an investment I pushed through, or a customer I fought too hard for. If something doesn’t happen in your favor, it’s because not happening was the favor. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
The key is that you have to leave no stone unturned first. The greatest pain in this life is the pain of regret. If you’ve tried everything and the outcome still isn’t what you hoped for, then you have to accept there’s a different path for you.
If it’s meant to be, it’s not supposed to feel unnaturally hard.
As Steve Jobs famously said, the dots only connect backwards. Not controlling the outcome doesn’t mean you don’t try. It means you stop forcing what refuses to move.
It sounds so cliché, but clichés are clichés for a reason. What’s meant for you will find you.
3. The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our life. 💜
Friendships aren’t measured by time, but by depth and connection.
Choosing to build better relationships, and letting go of the ones that weren’t serving me, was something I intentionally focused on this year.
It goes back to not feeling good enough. When you don’t believe you’re deserving of great things, you let yourself be surrounded by people who take from you and drain you. You don’t set boundaries because you’re afraid of losing people. You say yes when you mean no, you put yourself behind everyone else, and that’s how resentment builds. It cuts both ways. You resent them for taking, and you resent yourself for letting them.
There are people who lift you up. Who let you be unapologetically yourself without judgement. Who makes you feel bigger after every conversation. Those are the ones you gravitate towards because they’re easy to be around. You don’t have to be a different version of yourself to exist. Those people are true gems. Life is too short to accommodate anyone who makes you feel the opposite.
Letting go of friendships that were once important is hard. But sometimes, your stories in each other’s lives are just over. It doesn’t make the time you spent any less meaningful, it means you’re walking different paths now.
Many successful people will tell you the partner you choose will determine your success, and I share that sentiment. Your life partner can be your greatest source of joy or misery, success or failure. I’ve watched companies get made or broken by the support, or lack of it, from a partner.
Friends don’t have that same magnitude of impact, but collectively, your community can’t be underestimated. It shapes how supported you feel, the kinds of experiences you have, and how much fun you are while you’re having them.
Together, your life partner and your friends make up your happiness. Your happiness is the quality of your life.
I have the best life in the world, and it has nothing to do with the professional life I’ve designed for myself. That part is just the cherry on top.
It’s because I have the best friends, the best community, and the best partner anyone could ask for. They’re the ones who carried me through my darkest time, guided me toward a light I couldn’t see, and created the space for me to find myself again. In fact, I would credit everything I’ve built to the people around me. They’re the ones who have made me possible, and they’re the ones I do this for.
If I had all the money in the world and no one around me, I’d trade every dollar of it for the life I have today.
What is success if you have no one to share it with?
I remember backpacking alone in my mid 20s, thinking none of these memories are going to last, because I have no one to talk about them with. An adventure alone is easily forgotten. An adventure with friends lasts a lifetime.
The greatest measure of success is the number of people you love, who love you back.
This last year was spectacular. Full of growth, gratitude, and love. I’ve never felt more ready for what’s next.
Here’s to another year of who knows what. 🥂
Till next time,
— Melissa, your founder next door ✌️
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