Whomst among us is actually “killing it”?

I hear it’s World Mental Health Day.

I like to think that it would be no surprise to anyone who reads my emails (or especially my tweets) that the health of my mental is tenuous at best.

But while it feels obvious to me that I don’t have it together, I do feel like on this day it’s important to call it out explicitly.

Because I am in the fortunate position of having a (very small) platform online for my work there’s a thing I get told a lot: “you’re killing it!” And I always say “thank you!”… before uncomfortably moving the conversation forward. But what I really want to ask is “why do you think that?”

Many of the things I consider my most meaningful contributions to the marketing industry, for example, have resulted in just as much alienation as visibility. Everyone loves to fav someone who is bold on Twitter!… but no one actually wants to book (never mind pay) her for a speaking engagement to share more. Radical ideas be too radical.

And if you were to look all the way behind the curtain, the things you might see as me “killing it” have actually been killing me. At times quite literally.

The constant travel over the past 10 years has ravaged my body. And I had a brutal postpartum sickness that I am only finally starting to heal from 3 years later. While my business has grown and is doing well by most standards of measuring new businesses in their first year… I am on track to make about the same amount of money I made 10 years ago. For double the work. Which, as the primary earner in my household, isn’t a great position to be in.

I believe in the investment my partners and I are making in Current Forward. I know I’m getting my health back on track. My family is happy and the roof is still over our heads. The future actually IS fucking bright. By some measures I probably AM killing it. But you can see where 99 days out of the past 100 I have not felt like I’ve been “killing it”.

How many of us feel like we are “killing it”? How many people that I see killing it or praise for killing it are actually on the same struggle bus as me? I’m starting to think that the gap between the greatness that others see in you, and the way you actually feel, is where mental health is found and built. I can’t know what’s true for you all, but on this Mental Health Day I wanted to share that I’m still very much a work in progress.