Stepping Back to Move Forward – A New Era for Vivid & Brave

Maine Lighthouse - Looking back to move forward

Our dream for Vivid & Brave when we first launched it was to create a community for creative women. A place where we could have a variety of conversations.

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you know that our first plan didn’t quite work out. Just before the 1 year anniversary of our launch, I stepped down. Now that 2014 is over, I can say that it was probably one of the hardest days of the year for me. Like Stephanie said, breaking up was hard to do.

There was a day or two where words were exchanged. A few weeks where we didn’t talk often. Then we went to Portland, Maine together. The walls we had both built to protect ourselves started to come down. Slowly. Hesitantly.

I gave myself the last quarter of 2014 off of work. I drove from Houston to Maine, and then took 4 weeks to drive home. 7200 miles alone in a car gives you a lot of time to think.

Once I was home, Stephanie & I started to talk more. The things we had learned about ourselves. The difference in our working styles. Our strengths – and our weaknesses.

Then one day I approached her and suggested we consider working on Vivid & Brave again. Because by stepping back I had some ideas that I thought could take us forward, taking us to our original vision.

She was hesitant, and I don’t blame her for that. After all, I had left her just months earlier. I had also realized something very key to making the relationship work.

I told her she was the boss.

When you’re a partnership, it is difficult when you are both very strong personalities, and you sometimes have opposing opinions. I also realized that I would be a lot happier if in those situations, she was the boss. I trust her to listen to my opinions, but I wanted to hand her the final control.

We talked for hours since that moment. We stepped back and looked at how far we had come. We realized that we didn’t want to do it alone. For this to truly be a conversation? We needed more voices.

We set our egos aside to find a way to make our dream a reality.

We invited others to apply to write for us. We accepted 17 additional writers to join us. We divided the tasks that we need to do to manage Vivid & Brave between us, and then we spent the month of January getting everything ready.

I am so proud of what we’ve created together. I’m so blown away by the writers joining us. Most of all, I’m grateful for Stephanie for the chance to be a part of it all.

It took stepping back to look at it all to find the way to move forward.

Today kicks off a new era of Vivid & Brave.

Christine Tremoulet

Online Social Marketing Strategist at Christine Tremoulet
Christine Tremoulet is an author, a social marketing strategist, and a speaker. She uses her 15 years of blogging experience (she actually named WordPress!) to help others with Blogging Brilliantly so they can use their blog and social media to share their story with the world and build their own successful business. She is the original Avenger of Sexiness. She truly believes that You Are Enough. She lives in Houston, Texas with her husband & her college-age son, when not out on an adventure. (You can follow those at Have Gear, Will Travel.) Mini Cooper is her spirit animal.

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