Let me tell you a story.
I want to tell you the story from my life and how I got to where I am. It’s not a pretty story but it is my story.
Have you ever wanted to be somebody? When you have been treated like a nobody your whole life you yearn for it. Here is my story.
Where The Story Begins
Hurt people, hurt people and that is exactly what my mother did to me. She always made me feel small and insignificant. She has always been a very angry, negative women and it transferred to me.
She always hated my father and not a day has gone by when she hasn’t told me so. He is a simpleton and I resent him for never protecting me from her.
I have a sister. She is harsh but she means well.
I wanted to be a singer. My mother told me she would help me be anything but she would never help me be that. This started a life where I just didn’t fit it no matter what I did.
As a young child I was left devastated by three men. My uncle who I worshiped abandoned me by leaving Australia and returning back to Greece for a better life. A school teacher during my early years relentlessly bullied me.
My father neglected me because he was too busy protecting himself by avoiding my mother and rarely being home. No-one protected me. My relationship with men would never recover.
My depression began then and it was dark. When I was 15 I attempted suicide by taking an overdose of prescription medication.
Working Through The Pain
Even though there is a lot of darkness I have always been a positive person. A little candle burning bright within. It would get blown out many times yet I always relit it.
I always wanted to be my own boss to feel important, to be someone. So I started business after business but my mother’s brutal, cutting remarks about anything I did left me devastated and my very low self-esteem would weigh me down and I failed every single time.
Just as the early rockets of SpaceX crashed and burned so did I. As Elon Musk would go back and inspect the burning carcasses to see how he could improve I would never look back. I would just carry the shame forward and it built.
Over the years I have seen over 20 counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists to help me cope. Some helped, some didn’t.
I ran away from home when I was 36 and moved to Perth. It was the best time of my life until I found myself literally standing at a crossroads. A railway crossroads.
I met up with a man at a local pub I had been chatting with on a dating app. I came to see what he looked like. He came with one thing in mind. We had drinks then walked outside. I remember standing there staring over the tracks towards home. I just wanted to go home.
He bullied me into going home with him. I was so disappointed that I didn’t protect myself that night that I have never been with a man since. He was the straw that broke the camel’s back. That was over 10 years ago.
I always wanted children, a family of my own. At 47 I still yearn for it. My goals have always been the same, run my own business, buy a home of my own put a studio in it to make music and raise my family.
Then just when I thought I was out they pull me back in. I returned back to Melbourne to look after my parents. Both of them got cancer then my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Allowing A New Beginning
I hadn’t looked after myself in years and one day I saw a copy of Vogue that had a free Kylie Jenner Lip Kit which included a lipstick and matching lip liner in a box. I decided to treat myself. I loved the kit so much that one turned into thirty!
Within the kits though there is nothing to connect the lipstick to the matching lip liner once you discard the box. It was getting annoying trying the find the right pencil for the matching lipstick.
I started using rubber bands, but they snap. The solution? Lippy Links. A product that connects the lipstick with the matching lip liner that doesn’t snap and is so pretty.
I sold my car to fund Lippy Links which has taken me over four years to bring to life and is at its final stages. I am so proud of myself that I invented this and I didn’t give up and now I want to share it with you.
So why am I writing this? I have been doing a business course that said a brand must live and breathe on its own. We must infuse humanity into our businesses if we want to create a relationship with a customer.
Charlotte Beers says “a brand is created when a company earns the right to have a relationship with their customer.”
Well this is me putting my humanity into my brand and earning the right to have a relationship with you. I want you to know the person behind this brand good or bad. The story isn’t pretty but the product is.
