THE UGLY TRUTH

As I sat in that dark hotel room, I was finally alone—and for the first time in a long time, I had space to acknowledge what was really happening. It was 8:30 a.m. I had just come back from an all-nighter in my studio. I sat on the edge of the bed and started to cry. This was normal by then—a routine response to the back-to-back, self-inflicted abuse I had come to accept as work. The hustle hurt, and the exhaustion was part of the recovery period. But this time was different. The sob grew louder, heavier, until it took over.

I was faced with an aggressive kind of reality. Despite the great sales, celebrity messages, the magazine features, the interviews, the demands from TV networks and tour managers, the collaboration emails, the phone calls, the excited clients, and the enthusiastic team—my reality was pitiful and disgusting. I was unrecognisable. I hadn’t showered in days. My hair was matted. My weight had passed 110kg. Breathing felt like a task. I was emotionally finished.

The crying didn’t stop that day. It lasted for three more. I cried at night. I cried in restaurants. I cried in the car. I cried in front of my small children. Just not in my studio. It’s only now, looking back, that I realise what was happening—I had naturally entered a process of mourning.

I felt buried beneath the pressure. Constantly trying to keep up. Constantly holding everything and everyone. I didn’t want to take another call. I didn’t want to fix another problem or pretend I was okay. And in that quiet room, with no more distractions left to hide behind, I was forced to face it. I felt shame. Deep, physical shame. I was ruined—and on the brink of public humiliation—because I couldn’t hold it anymore. I couldn’t hack the responsibility I had once worn like a badge of honour.

I couldn’t look in the mirror. I didn’t recognise the person I had become. And somewhere in that quiet collapse, I was forced to admit what I hadn’t wanted to say out loud: that my business—my glorified hustle, my baby, the thing I had built with every ounce of my being—was quietly, methodically, and sustainably killing me.

This wasn’t burnout. No. I had long passed that stage. I was broken. And it wasn’t a choice anymore. It was the end. I gave this project everything I had. It defined me, and I knew that in the process of losing my business I was also losing my identity. Again—I didn’t know it, but I was 100% in a period of mourning.

Up until that point, I had confused people-pleasing for leadership. I genuinely believed that saying yes to everything was a form of customer service, a strategy for brand loyalty, even a kind of delegation. But every yes has a cost—and the fact that I could bend so easily to the needs of others was proof that I lacked something essential: process. I didn’t have direction. I didn’t have systems. I was just guessing, every day, and it was starting to show.
I wish I had taken the time to invest in myself as a business owner, but with two small children and a demanding entity that sometimes required me to sleep between my inventory shelves—when exactly was that supposed to happen? That hotel room marked my breaking point and a very hard, dark, and ugly truth.

For years, I had chased growth under the illusion that revenue was the only metric that mattered. If the numbers kept climbing, I told myself, everything else would eventually fall into place. But growth without structure isn’t success—it’s a slow-motion collapse. That day, I had to admit something painful but true: I wasn’t running my business. My business was running me—straight into the ground. And if I didn’t find another way, I wasn’t going to survive it.

I knew I didn’t need another quick fix. Not another late-night patchwork solution to keep things running for a few more months. I needed a system—a framework strong enough to hold the weight of the business, but flexible enough to allow me to step back. I needed time, a plan, training, and structure. I needed to stop surviving and start designing a business that could actually support me too.