The Evy's Tree Story: A Dreamer and Her Blind Spots

Discussing the prequel to the start up of a multi million dollar business

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
― Aristotle

I suppose this is a self discovery story…

Every good business must start somewhere, and I guess mine starts here….

Me with my dad, my mom and my sister.

I was a dreamer…

I’m not sure I thought of myself as a dreamer. I think I thought of myself as a bit different than everyone else, maybe? I definitely didn’t feel like I fit into my family. I lived in my head a lot. I was always thinking about the possibilities; I loved to play make believe. I would spend hours pretending I was a shop keeper, setting up a “store” for my family and neighbor friends to shop at. Sometimes I was pretending to be a famous singer and would hold concerts for my family. I always had some imaginative thing happening. Dreaming of a life that wasn’t mine was my favorite.

I adored my family, but I wasn’t sure if I fit in.

My mom was so beautiful. Classy. Everyone loved her. And my dad, well, he was a force. Larger than life. Big energy. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. My older brother and my older sister were both such big characters to me. My brother was loud and energetic. He never seemed afraid of anything. Like my dad, he had big energy. And my sister, she could do no wrong in my eyes. I wanted to be just like her. When my younger brother came along, I remember always being worried about him. He was so laid back and kind and smart and funny. My mom says I was always telling him what to do… he was on his own timeline, never on mine, so I tried to keep him in line, which of course he didn’t need.

In reality I was just bossy.

I thought I knew what everyone should do. In my make believe world, I was the one with the best ideas and everyone should follow them. I suppose my character was cemented pretty early on… In my effort to figure myself out, I just kept bulldozing everyone over. I think I just felt so out of place in my own little life…Maybe being bossy covered that up.

There were so many strong personalities in my world. Everyone seemed either physically beautiful, or super smart, or intense. I wasn’t sure who I was, so I worked hard at fitting in. I struggled to learn to read and do math. I remember sitting on the living room couch with a math tutor during the summers when the rest of my family was outside playing. I could hear their laughter and wished I was with them. I remember the tutor using flashcards and all I could think about was how everyone didn’t have such a hard time learning like I did, and they were all outside having so much more fun than me.

I don’t think I ever learned those math facts. That poor tutor.

I knew I was so very loved.

My Gramps, Nannie, my dad and me. We always celebrated my dad’s birthday in Tahoe. My mom always made a cake. And it looks like my dad took a piece out of the cake before we put candles on it. That was so him. He just did exactly what he wanted to do. He was a force.

The funny thing is, I knew everyone loved me. I mean, I knew I was adored. Everyone doted on me. I was glued to the hip to my mom. My dad had a big smile on his face every time he saw me. My older brother was always doing his best to take care of me. My sister would play with me for hours. And my Nannie and Gramps… I knew they thought I was something special. I never doubted any of their love. It was always there, I could feel it.

I wasn’t naturally pretty.

I was so embarrassed of my freckles. So embarrassed. I was super fair skinned and was sunburnt all the time. As I hit puberty, I grew and was pudgier and taller and more awkward than all the women in my family. I was not thin, I had freckles, I was loud, I was fair. I really felt like a sore thumb all the time.

And, as I mentioned HERE, I was deeply, deeply spiritual.

I really didn’t know how rectify that in my life. My spirituality scared me a bit. I think one of the most confusing parts about my upbringing was the juxtaposition between my dad’s strong personality and my mom’s spiritual desires. She was a seeker. She was always talking about God. My dad on the other hand was not really interested. I respected both my parents so much, I think I often felt confused where I should fall… should chase after God with all my heart like my mom? Or work hard and seek money like my dad? I supposed, very early on, a little battle started waging in my mind. I really didn’t know if you could do both and it was often very confusing to me. I loved helping people. I enjoyed very intrinsic opportunities. I still do. I wish I didn’t have to worry about money. I admired people missionaries like Amy Carmichael and others who gave themselves fully over to God and the Christian mission. But I also deeply admired business people who had faith but worked hard and made a nice living, gave to the church but lived a posh life.

Limiting beliefs settled very early on in my heart and mind:

I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t pretty enough. And I was too spiritual to work in the mainstream world.

These beliefs left a chasm deep in my soul that I could never completely close in my mind.

The irony behind my feelings is what I thought I was and what I really was were polar opposites. But I didn’t learn that until much later in life. What I missed was that my entire family were entrepreneurs, and none of them really knew what they were doing. We were all flying by the seat of our pants. We were natural risk takers, some more than others, and I wouldn’t call any of us social butterflies. Except Nannie and Gramps… they had a huge social circle. But not my parents. My dad had businesses all over, and he would travel in his little Cessna all the time to check on them. We didn’t see him much. I really wasn’t that much different from my family. They were just trying to figure it out too. But they knew that about themselves. I think they knew much more about themselves than I did about me.

They say insecurities drive you and I can attest to that.

My limiting beliefs that I wasn’t good enough led me on a life long path to prove my worth.

And remember selfishness, pride and greed?

Well, there was that too. I wanted it all. Why couldn’t I ever be satisfied with what God gave me? It’s something I will never be able to understand. But all this insecure energy and inability to quiet my inner monsters led me to a crossroads years and years later when I was finally married and pregnant with Jacob, my first baby. I was teaching fourth grade at the time, but I desperately wanted to be a stay at home mom. But I was the higher paycheck earner in my marriage and the insurance holder; quitting my job didn’t seem an option. The question would pop up on my head….

How do I fund the life I wanted, but didn’t have?

I really was still standing at that weird crossroads where I just wanted to do something meaningful, like be a stay at home mom, but I was terrified of not making enough money. That chasm that I could never close in my inner psyche? It was still there. Gaping open for all to see, and I was extremely embarrassed by my inability to understand myself.

See, this is really a self discovery story. One of looking to the past and seeing what I was then. It’s painful. But it needs to be done. Because my story isn’t just mine. It may be yours too. I’m realizing now, my drive wasn’t unique to me. There are many other people out there like me who are not at peace with the life they have. Who never really understood who they were and are.

Eventually, that lack of clarity of who I was forced me to take a step that determined the entire trajectory of my life, and the life of my children.

But wait… I’m getting ahead of myself….This story really starts with falling in love.