Nothing brought a tear to my eye faster than seeing the first true signs of life: seeing it take shape in mock-ups of my logo and web- site or receiving my business cards in the mail. It was like seeing my baby for the first time on an ultrasound. (I can say that now that I’ve since had two human children.) The first time you have these signs of life are defining moments. It’s really happening! Give the moments their place in making you feel alive with clarity.

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Some things are easy to relish while some remind us that we’re adapting to a big shift . . . like morning sickness. Adjustment phases are hard and, perfect concept or not, starting a business is one big adapta- tion. Adjustments are inevitable. There will be phases of development regardless of your background. Hard skills (like finance and market- ing) will come in time. But today, open yourself to a new set of normal, I-should-learn-more-about-that-one-too perspective. It’s difficult but important for the expecting mom. In other words, become willing to dig deeper even in areas you once felt proficient in.

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Expect Evolution . . . and a Lotta Self-Improvement

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Ideally, you could center on what you’re good at and outsource the rest. Unfortunately, most founders aren’t able to do much other than bootstrapping, so in addition to assessing strengths, it’s time to get real comfortable with any areas for development. This was confusing to me because most business books, and even business school, encour- aged me to hire professionals to do anything I couldn’t or wouldn’t do. But the truth is, I didn’t have the unicorn budget for it. Thus, deeper exploration commenced to first figure out what I could (or pretend I could) do that didn’t come at a huge expense to the brand or the goal.