Erin Mac
executive coach
In 2000 I had moved to Hawaii to start a new life and begin my journey as a business owner. For those who have decided on this path you know that you can learn an incredible amount certainly about business, but also about yourself. You learn how much resilience you have, hopefully how to balance work and life (this has taken awhile), and how to become solution-oriented.
I moved to Hawaii, from San Francisco in 2000, looking for a simpler life, thinking that it was in a location. I had just had the hardest year of my life battling an anxiety disorder that had me holed up in my home for nearly that whole year. Upon getting a remedy for the anxiety symptoms I thought if I moved somewhere where there were less people, traffic, less everything, that it would be easier. I made a three item list of what I wanted to accomplish by moving to a simpler place and lifestyle: 1) start my own business, 2) work part-time and, 3) smell a plumeria everyday (this is a tropical flower for those that don't know.) What I did, however, was start a business and get my first client within 24 hours, build 2 businesses (a cleaning & property management business and a catering business) immediately, and within a year and a half I had 20+ employees and several multiple six-figure contracts. Needless to say not a simpler life, not part-time and as for the flower smelling, that went by the wayside shortly thereafter as well. I was in the whirlwind of business for 10 years and then, a personal challenge brought me to my knees.
It was the end of the year 2010 when I came to the startling conclusion that everything was about to change. I was living in Hawaii, married with a two-year-old daughter, my successful business of 10 years was surviving the economic downturn, I had amassed 5 homes as successful investment properties with a total value in the multi-millions, drove a nice car, lived in a beautiful home, in a great neighborhood, which was all about to come to an abrupt end. I suddenly found myself as a divorced, single mom of a two-year-old, living in one of the investment properties that was under construction, starting over.
