Written by: Anna Marešová
When something is pouring, everything is pouring and it is unstoppable. At the beginning of the year, when we were still working on the design of the cable car to Petřín, I finally got around to taking the big step and finding a COO for the company. (For those who are not from the corporation - operations director). The world was slowly starting to recover from the pandemic, so we released the ad. The day after that the war started.
I don't remember the first 14 days at all, I just know that I was totally paralyzed. I was already mentally closing up shop and hiding the vibrators and all my loved ones in the basement. We helped as much as we could. And I wanted to help even more, but I gradually realized that I simply did not have more resources or more physical and mental strength. Because all our sales stopped, which is really a problem for a company that is not subsidized from other sources. There was a decrease of 80%. After covid, another unexpected negative influence that comes from outside and is difficult to influence.
I'm an expert on frugality, but I found out that I no longer have the balls to start where I did nine years ago. I felt as if someone mercilessly sent me back in Man don't be angry back to the house.
Now you're going to do it all over again!
I wasn't angry. Only, instead, an unknown and uncontrollable distress from the future came upon me. Kind of like driving on ice with summer tires. I felt the immense fragility of the company and the whole world. For the second time since the breakup, I hit rock bottom. We did not advance to the finals in the cable car competition. But the final straw was that they ended up canceling the entire competition. It was clear to me that I was unable to help anyone or anything in this state, and that I had to start with myself first. And so I decided, even though I felt moral inhibitions in every way, to buy a plane ticket and leave. In two days, I caught covid, which at that time was already "non-existent". So I was completely crazy. Little did she know that I was so exhausted and stressed again, I finally took off, albeit belatedly.
A beautiful, colorful and peaceful Costa Rica welcomed me again. I was still quite tired after covid, but I took it as a classic, but after a few days, this was accompanied by strange and intense chest pains, which shot into my back and under my right rib and did not stop. There were also those who predicted a heart attack. Which in the middle of jungle you really don't want to hear. And it stayed that way for almost 3 weeks. I blamed myself for not even being able to enjoy the vacation with "all the last money". And to make it even less enjoyable, I got some crazy and painful acne all over my face and I looked like an ugly 13-year-old boy who walks on a stoop. As I neared civilization, I stumbled towards the doctor. She gave me pills for reflux and told me it was from stress, which probably calmed me down. And I slowly began to straighten up.
As part of the investigation, I stayed in a dorm room for the first time in my life, with the idea that I would give it a try. I imagined that this shared bunk room would be full of mature women who had come to Nosara to meditate and find themselves. At first I was scared by the number of shoes in front of the door, and the shoes didn't look very feminine to me either. After a few days, I realized that I was in a room with five great guys, each from a different part of the world. Gradually more and more people joined in, and I think there were about fifteen of us going to breakfast / lunch / dinner in the end. I found myself at the best school in nature. I started surfing, breathing, laughing and thinking rationally again. I fell in love with Costa Rica the second time around and even more and I'm looking forward to going there a third time.
I also got a lot of great feedback on Whoop·de·doo. Including the fact that Americans really love the name and always start laughing and repeating the word endlessly or start using it or even yelling it on various occasions (for example, when riding an ATV on a road with holes and potholes).
Distance from home restored my lost distance and suddenly I saw what was needed to do. The crisis clearly and uncompromisingly exposes what does not work. And you have to deal with it and change it if you want to move on. You need to optimize. Reevaluate. And don't be afraid of it. I'm back in my second month and I'm gradually straightening out the crumpled paper, and even though I'm in such a fast somersault now that everything is changing at my fingertips, including the people on the team, and I'm even more busy than usual, I'm enjoying it. Sales are still not a hit parade, but we are slowly turning the wheel. Energy is flowing again in the company and I am connected to my work again. I didn't give up on the COO and finally found her. So we're sniffing around and I'm seriously looking forward to actually handing the traffic over to her. And after half a year, I'm starting to feel like I'm going to take the (next!) corner. In short, the rule that you must not brake in a corner, but on the contrary, will apply forever.
Of course, I still feel a lot of uncertainty and I also perceive that the world as we knew it before covid and before the start of the war has definitely ended. It's different. It's just important to admit it and prepare for what's to come. I am convinced that there is a time when words like sustainability will get a real meaning.
Well, when the rubbish, the inner distress, comes up again, I tell myself that if a person is healthy, has a place to live, has something to eat and has nice people around, then nothing really matters. And that when the worst comes to worst, I can go to work in a library, for example, since I'm already a trained librarian and sort books by color and size until I'm tired. And this always calms me down so much that I come back to the present and start enjoying every moment here on earth.
Have a great summer, get as much energy as possible.
And above all, don't forget to laugh!
Anna