Marzena texted me from the airport.
“I’m at the gate where r u?”
“I’m shopping in Zara”
“Seriously” she texted back “Where r u ?”
I got the fear, tried nothing on, guessed at sizes, called an Uber and headed for the airport.
As we boarded Marzena handed me the mermaid tail I had ordered for Domino. Fitting the tail into the overhead locker took some organizing. People patiently waited.
Coming into Chicago we hit a lightning storm. Massive bolts streaked across the black sky. The plane shook and bounced. I closed the blind, too scared to watch; hold on, it might make a good Snapchat. I reopened it. Our CEO had warned me that nobody over the age of 40 should Snapchat, apparently your head blows off trying to work out how to get the watermelon icons off the screen. Ignoring him I snapped the impressive show. And slightly wondered if we were going to die.
Marzena, the mermaid tail, and I finally landed long after midnight, alive, and checked into the hotel.
The next day was fairly typical of any entrepreneur out and about launching a business: complete and utter madness. Crack of dawn conference calls, followed by a breakfast interview, a podcast, a Get Together selling event, tea with seventeen Ambassadors who had achieved great goals (my mother still asks “They are Ambassadors to where, darling?”), and a large gathering in the early evening to talk about the business side of our business.
The room was packed, the mood upbeat. Jeanette, our head of sales, gave a short, impressive introduction before handing the microphone to me. I spoke a bit about the story behind the brand and why I choose the less traditional route of Direct Sales and the freedom that entrepreneurialism gives you, but most especially about the friendships I have made through this business.
Then I spotted Nancy, now a director in our company, a mother and grandmother, dressed elegantly in black lace with her pearl earrings and prettily brushed hair, and I suddenly remembered her telling me about the time she herself had stood up, about to give a demonstration before a silenced crowd, and much to her own surprise she let rip an enormous fart. Unfortunately seeing Nancy only made me want to repeat the story. The moment was not right, the crowd was confused, the way I pronounced fart did not translate, and I could feel Jeanette wanting to wrestle the microphone out of my hand.
I was up by 4am and back at the airport. A few hours later the CEO called “How did it go?” he asked.