What no one tells you about being a boss is how lonely and isolating it is. Social media is filled with cutesy mugs and pink t-shirts splashed with BOSS BABE and GIRL BOSS and FEMPIRE, but I don't think we're spending enough time talking about the repercussions of becoming a boss: how you'll need to build your own support systems and structures because yours have disappeared; why getting left out of various office gatherings makes total sense -- Michael Scott is a caricature based in reality, my friends -- but it still stings; and how you'll suddenly really empathize with mothers of teenagers because everybody's mad at you, and you didn't even do anything. (This is because work is hard, and we all take our emotional stuff with us into the workplace, and sometimes we take it out on the people we work for and with. This is life, and we're just people.)
It's fine, but I don't need a mug that says "I'm not bossy; I'm the boss." What I need is emotional support and really thick skin. These are the makings of a boss.
I have spent the majority of 2019 putting structures in place to make ownership of The Bookshelf sustainable. I have read books and talked to experts because I don't want burnout to be my reality. The world, I think, discusses burnout as an inevitability. But does it have to be?
On Thursday, I met with my business coach. (Seven months ago, I didn't know what a business coach was or if I was allowed to have one.) We Skyped for nearly two hours, strategically planning together for 2020, and I nearly wept when we hung up.
Aside from my mother and maybe Jordan -- God bless them both -- no one has ever sat down with me to plan for the life of the store. Prior to running The Bookshelf, I was a champion at tackling goals and New Year's resolutions and words of the year.
Now I am nothing but a pile of aching body parts by the time January 1 rolls around. I have energy for exactly nothing.
I cannot believe how helpful it was to have someone in my corner on Thursday, reassuring me about working from home, scheduling office hours and time on the floor, what to take off my plate and what to add.
When I look back on 2019, I think I will just see help. I have had so much help.
The only way entrepreneurship has been possible these last few years is thanks to therapy, good friends, and the Holy Spirit. In the last six months, I've added to the mix a business coach, a bookkeeper, a virtual assistant, a spiritual director, and a mastermind group. I feel like a freaking genius because I've discovered one of my new secrets of adulthood: I cannot do one bit of this by myself. And Jordan? My mom, my dad? My friends? They can't fill all of those roles, either. It's too much for any one person to bear.
I felt silly, a few months ago, when I looked and realized all the various "gurus" I was adding to my life. It felt so stereotypically millennial. Who did I think I was? And look: I know every bit of the above paragraph points to privilege. It is not lost on me, and this may not be my life's circumstance forever.
For now, though, this is what it takes to keep the ship sailing and the trains running on time. When I took over The Bookshelf, I wanted it to be recognized across the region as something truly special. I wanted Thomasville to trust me. I wanted to put good books in people's hands, and I wanted to do it really, really well.
I still want those things, and I'm realizing the best way to accomplish those goals is to continue asking for help.
A few years ago, I felt akin to the little red hen. The best way to get something done? To do it myself.
Oh, past Annie. You were so, so wrong. But you know what? That's okay, because you learned. You know better, and now you're doing better.
What a long, strange, roller coaster of an 11 months it's been. But this is the year I took the plunge and asked for help, and when I did? The floodgates opened. I am so, so grateful, and now I'm looking at ways my life might actually become my own again. I love The Bookshelf, but she is not all of me, and there are ways to keep her running smoothly without me drowning in the process.
As 2019 comes to a close, I'm grateful for how far it feels like I've come. The next month is guaranteed to hold chaos of all kinds and varieties, but I'm hopeful for January. And I'd like to think when the next year's challenges begin to rear their ugly heads -- as I know they will -- I'll be better equipped to look around and ask for help. What a gift.
