Bloodline Boldness

“Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I just can’t. It isn’t in my blood.”  These are the lyrics to a Shawn Mendes song released last decade. I don’t know the song in its entirety or what it means to the songwriters, but the words of that chorus hit me every time. I hear just those 15 words and I feel seen.   

It’s predictable that about every 3 months, I want to quit. I look earnestly into my husband’s eyes and say, “I don’t want to do this.” I’m completely overwhelmed and it’s far too much. Another teammate is disappointed, another customer is dissatisfied, another event needs planning, another request needs an answer, another system has failed, another bill is late, another area is mismanaged, another license is needed, and another piece of equipment has broken. “Somebody help me now!” 

It turns out there is documented science behind this. The 90-day burnout cycle is a common phenomenon for entrepreneurs, creatives, and high-responsibility roles. The results are decision fatigue, decreased motivation, physical exhaustion, and doubts about long-term viability. It’s helpful to know these feelings of giving up will routinely come and go because I can plan for them. I can set intentional rest and reset rhythms into each quarter, look back and celebrate strengths, or at the very least know that I’m having a very normal response to the mission I serve. Simple awareness keeps me level-headed when on the brink of a breakdown because I know these feelings are expected and these feelings will pass. 

I say I want to, but never have I ever thought I would quit. It isn’t in my blood. I feel like it, but I just can’t. It’s genuinely not in me. I wouldn’t know how. I’ve said before when asked where the inspiration for owning a coffee shop came from, that hospitality is in my heritage and business is in my blood. I come from a long line of hospitable women and business-owning men. A coffee shop business offers the perfect blend of these generational legacies.   

My examples were hard-working grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles for whom “can’t or won’t” wasn’t an option. They would just figure stuff out. Solution-seeking in my childhood home looked like a lot of duct tape and an unreasonable amount of scrap metal. But entertaining looked like fresh-cut flower arrangements, themed napkins, games and décor. Even if we were held together by a thread, we honored others with our best. And that felt normal.   

So, when you catch me at that 90-day breaking point when the business has become overwhelmingly hard, and I look you in the eye and say, “I don’t want to do this”, remind me that I do. It’s how I’m wired. It’s the generational legacy passed down that I get to carry forward and it feels far more normal to me than giving up.  Oh sure, there’s a future where my role is reinvented and a time when I will wisely step aside for others to lead but giving up… isn’t in my blood. 

This blog post must be paired with the Bloody Mary. Undecided in its naming roots, it's the popular brunch cocktail and hangover cure offering electrolytes, vitamins, and alcohol. 

Recipe: Build Over Ice in Beer Glass - 1 oz. Vodka + Bloody Mary Mix (Tomato Juice, Worcestershire, Tabasco, Lemon Juice, Celery Salt, Black Pepper, Horseradish). Garnish with Celery Stalk, 3 Olives, & Lemon Wedge.