Shoutout to Panic Attacks

A pretty big life altering chapter in my life started the summer of 2017. At the time I was a serious competitor in the busy olympics. I was living in New York City and working at a big fancy consulting firm where my normal involved a day job in product design, working on a global research initiative, harassing smart people into mentorship, chair of the office volunteer programs, captaining an improv group, playing on the soccer team…and that was just my office life. I had two nicknames then: “the machine” and “the cruise director”…does that paint a picture yet? Forbes once quoted a senior partner as saying: “…we look to hire people who are first, very smart; second, insecure and thus driven by their insecurity; and third, competitive.” Woof.

So there I was, in Singapore for a workshop, assigned to a project back in NYC, and keeping up with the team lead in Los Angeles. By the third or fourth day, it started to feel like my wheels were running off the tracks. Too many timezones, everything in excess besides sleep and a constant sense of doom that I forgot something— things had definitely reached a boiling point. All I remember is jolting awake in my work clothes with my head propped against some pillows. Neither my brain nor my body knew what time it was or what day it was. I loosened my white knuckled grip on things for just a second or a few minutes… oh my gawd, was it a whole day?! Enter: panic attack. I sat there, shivering in the cold unfamiliar room and hugged my knees tightly. My mind shouted in colors and flicked through images and numbers like an unhinged kaleidoscope. It was a violent introduction to my own intuition, screaming at me to stop and listen.

Months earlier, the company I worked for had acquired two incredibly accomplished design studios. Thanks to some connections I made through the office improv group, I got to know some of the new designers and we held some trainings at their studio in Sweden. It was a renovated church on a lake outside of Stockholm with an almost magical feeling to it. I met so many creative people without any of the insecure, overachieving energy I was used to. They told stories of swimming together in the lake during the summer and the fun of renovating the basement to build prototypes for a public transportation project. I wanted my work to feel like that. Full of sunlight and bold possibilities with such a sincere appreciation for the human experience. I didn’t want to leave. My trip to Singapore involved a visit with the other design studio acquisition where they had already setup shop in one of our offices. Later on, we visited their headquarters in San Francisco where things remained separate. I couldn’t imagine a future where the magical energy of these design studios could survive in the world of management consulting. I was starting to wonder if I could.

When I returned to New York, things felt like a tight, scratchy sweater with arm holes I couldn’t find. Back at the office, I was bitterly frustrated by our sad, corporate design practices. By 2018, I set out as a full time freelancer eager to figure it out. By taking this brave, noble leap, I expected the universe to reward me with clients and a red carpet to my own design utopia. There were great moments during that time but within six months, I ran straight into the arms of another corporate job with even more timezones and also health benefits. What can I say? I was new to trusting myself, but three years later when I started Bold Type, it was different. It started the way Robert Frost described his work as a poet, he said, “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.” For me it also wasn’t a thought, it started with a panic attack in Singapore. We’re three years in and there isn’t a renovated church for an office or a lake but I know in my bones that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.