I’m
out meeting with the press right now to promote SmartNow.com and I’m
getting quite a reaction. Not to the business, but to me. You see, it’s
been awhile since I met with them, at least eight years. Many of the
people in the press are same ones I met all those years ago. Many I
don’t know. No matter if they knew me before or not, they all ask the
same question: "What mistakes have you made and what have you learned
from them?" And this isn’t a normal "check-the-box" reporter question.

This is a loaded question with heavy reference to my past, some would
say my infamous past.

First some background, I was the CEO of
Pets.com. In case you haven’t heard of it, Pets.com and its mascot, the
Sock Puppet, became the symbol for the dotcom bubble and its subsequent
bust. Some have even charged me personally with bringing down the U.S.
economy. Pets’ short period of success was fueled by positive press
about the company and myself. Pets received even more press when it
failed.

As the public CEO, I failed, and it was a very public
failure. In fact, I was labeled one of the biggest failures ever. How
bad was it? I had people laugh in my face when I introduced myself for
years after the company closed. It happened as recently as a year ago.
A couple of people asked me what it felt like to be one of the
best-known failures in the U.S. Most just walked away from me. One
woman told me to my face that I was a loser. I could go on and on, but
you get the point: I became a symbol for something greater than myself,
and we aren’t talking puppet envy here.

What most people don’t
know is that the very same week that Pets.com failed, my marriage of
seven years failed as well. Actually, it had been failing for a long
time. It became officially over that week. My husband decided to call
it quits the day before I announced to the employees and the public
markets that I was shutting down Pets. It was a really bad week.

Now,
I would like to tell you that I was down but not out. That I just
brushed myself off and got on with life. I didn’t. At first, I kept
myself hyper-busy. That lasted for about three months. Then, I sank
into a depression. I’m sure I was in shock for a long time. It was a
very dark, confused time in my life. I kept pushing myself to get back
to normal. That didn’t happen.

I never got back to myself. I
became better than I was. Note that it is almost seven years since
Pets.com failed. Mystics might say I am entering a new seven-year
cycle. I kind of think that's true because I believe there are
universal laws and truths. I do know I have been on a journey. I have
taken stock of the five big mistakes I have made in my life and fought
my way through. I’m sure I’ll make some more big mistakes in the
future, but hopefully I won’t make the same ones again.

If you have made your own mistakes and are not sure how to get on
with your life, perhaps my reflections will help you. And if you make
mistakes in the future, I hope my lessons help you in some way and that
you will learn from your humanness and not slip slide into a dark place
for long.

Mistake 1: I allowed others to
define me. I completely defined myself as a failure, as the press did.
I read every negative thing said about the company in the press and on
message boards. Many were personally directed at me. Needless to say,
the new people and jobs I attracted during this time of my life
reinforced my negative self-image. None of these people are in my life
today.

How I moved on: I got tired of and
bored with living in the past. I took stock of myself and decided that
I know myself better than others. I am the only one who has taken my
journey. I came to recognize that most reactions to me were not
personal. I knew at some intrinsic level that my active participation
in letting others define my failed past would be carried into my
future. I didn’t want to live my own version of the movie “Groundhog
Day.” I really wanted to heal. How could I have let others’ opinions of
me define and engulf me in the first place? Well, that leads me to the
second mistake.

Mistake 2: I built my image
of myself on two main supporting planks. When those collapsed, I did
too. What I mean is that I had defined myself as someone who was smart
and could figure things out and also someone who was entering middle
age as a married woman. The “smart” definition was fostered from my
childhood. I was the oldest of four children with a mother who was ill
and a father who worked long hours to make ends meet. Whenever I asked
my parents a question, they would say: “You are smart, what do you
think?” Believing I was smart helped me survive a hard family situation
and still make top honors in school. I never bought into being a
“pretty” girl; I was the smart one. But felt I was not smart enough for
Pets.com. I failed publicly. After more than 20 years of good to great
business successes, I had crashed and burned. The second way I defined
myself was as a married woman. I liked being married, belonging to a
little tribe of two. That plank was yanked out from underneath me. Or
perhaps I yanked both planks subconsciously to grow. In any case, both
foundations were gone.

How I moved on:
Where did this leave me? Lost. What did I do? I started looking for
what would feed my soul. I tried to get back to my essence, my best
self. I love drawing and painting, so I started doing this again and
working with art organizations. I love being around people who solve
problems creatively, create art, think differently and express
themselves uniquely. I rented funny movies—no kidding. I sought out
laughter. I developed relationships with very loving people who
laughed. I got involved in my community. I developed a few routines
with those around me. This included spending time with a
70-something-year-old woman who vibrated with life and owned the local
coffee shop. And, slowly, I began to see myself as more than two key
bullet points. I stopped labeling myself and saw those labels as false
security. Oddly enough, I began to feel more secure.

Mistake 3:
I stopped believing in myself. You can see how mistakes one and two
would lead to the third. For a long time, especially as it came to my
own career, I operated out of fear. Fear of failure. And I lived in
that space for too long.

How I moved on: At
some point last year, I decided that if I believed in myself then I had
to invest in myself. I realized that if I didn’t invest in myself I
couldn’t expect others to do it, either. I respond to visual goals, so
I did a vision board: I took white poster board and I pasted pictures
and phrases that represented my goals. The most prominent goal was
investing in myself on all levels. I showed myself climbing the
proverbial ladder and once again reaching for the stars. And when I had
a good business plan in hand, I invested money in my own company. This
is the first time I have started a company for myself.

Mistake 4:
I stopped taking care of myself. I had gained weight over the years and
stopped exercising. When Pets was collapsing, I started exercising
again and the pounds had started to come off, so my physical health had
started to improve. What I didn’t realize is that my emotional health
was deteriorating. I did not recognize my own depression. For at least
two years after Pets shut down, I didn’t care if I lived or died. I
never actively tried to kill myself; that would go against my
Midwestern upbringing. I just didn’t care if I lived. I was also just
starting to experience the first symptoms of peri-menopause, so I had
to come terms with my own childlessness. I had curiously decided that
if I was meant to have a child, then I would have gotten pregnant
during my marriage. Not having children reinforced my indifference to
life during this period. I didn’t have children to take care of, so
what was the point? I was also angry. The anger came in waves.

How I moved on:
I wish I would have been more proactive in my own mental health. I did
not recognize my state of mind as depression. I mean, I wasn’t crying
every day nor did I drive to the Golden Gate Bridge and contemplate
jumping. I can honestly say the thought never entered my mind. But I
was clearly depressed, and only years later did I realize how much I
needed help. I should have seen a therapist and perhaps even gone on
medication. I pulled out of this state because I started to see beauty
again (see mistake two, which also shows the healing power of art in my
life). Once I started seeing beauty, I wanted to see more of it. Once I
learned to let go of the anger and fear, I wanted to thrive.

Mistake 5: Allowing my head to rule my heart. If I would have started with this
item, it might have seemed too trite. But it isn’t. The head is the
ego. Mine was shattered. I had to exercise my heart in order to heal.

How I moved on:
To be honest, I’m not sure I have moved past this, but I am doing
better. As I moved through the other mistakes and began to heal, I also
began to see the world differently. I began to realize that I could be
comfortable letting my heart make some decisions. And when those
started showing a payoff, I allowed my heart to make even more
decisions. Life is richer in the heart zone, but I’m too analytical to
give up the head part. I’m just trying to find a better balance every
day.

That’s all for now.