There are changes coming... Like a seafarer who has learned to read the ocean, who feels the wind shift before anyone else notices, I have been sensing a change in the air for a while now.
The biggest one: I have recruited my husband to come work for KAEIU.
He is wrapping up with his current client, who is scaling back his hours. When he first told me, I went straight into panic mode. Do we let our part-time nanny go? I had booked her through the summer, until the kids start school in September. Should he take over childcare while I run KAEIU? Should I cancel every subscription we have? Do we even need vitamins? No more dining out. No more ordering in. Full lockdown mode.
That is where his grounded side comes in. He reminded me we have been here before, and it has always worked out. He said the best way to use this upcoming lull is to put his hours toward something that builds our future. And having just paid myself for the first time, the most obvious answer was right in front of us. Go all in on KAEIU.
I had a moment of hesitation. We align on almost everything in life, but we have never been able to work together. We are oil and vinegar when it comes to actual collaboration. He has his methods, I have mine, and they are different enough that we usually end up in an argument. To make this work, we needed clear lines. Boundaries. Defined roles, written down, not just assumed.
On Friday, we had our first real meeting. Having a second brain in the room, thinking alongside me, was... refreshing! But I noticed something uncomfortable almost immediately. While he talked in big picture terms, marketing campaigns, funnels, growth levers, I kept pulling the conversation back down to who is doing this and how is it actually going to get done. I could not stay in the big picture. I kept landing on logistics. Throughout the entire meeting, he had to keep redirecting me. We are just planning. We are just thinking out loud. This is hypothetical. We can sort out the minutiae later, once we know what we are actually focusing on.
I could not believe how hard that was for me.
After five years of working solo, everything in my brain is wired around execution. An idea only exists for me if I can see how to build it, with my time, my budget, my skill set. If I cannot execute it, the idea dies before it even gets a chance. I have never had the luxury of dreaming without simultaneously doing.
For the first time in a long time, I am scared. Very, very scared.
For five years, KAEIU did not carry the weight of our family's finances. I built it at my own pace, and if it failed, it would not have taken our family down with it. It never subtracted from us, but it never supported us either. It existed in its own protected lane.
That lane is closing now. So much more rides on this than it ever has.
I guess that is exactly the push I needed. The version of KAEIU that exists five years from now is not the one I would have built slowly and safely, on my own, protecting myself from risk. My husband sees the horizon. I see the steps to get there. If we can learn to hold both at once, that might be the exact combination this business has been missing.
Who knows if we can make this work. But I know the wind has shifted, and I am ready to see where it takes us.
With love,
Maria
Snapped this photo to mark the start of something new.