Thirty Todays Story - Part I

Summer 2019. I just returned to work after a 13-month maternity leave. I got a promotion while being on maternity leave and I was coming back to work in a new role. I've been craving the work, and was excited to get back to the office as a Director of Demand Generation of a tech company. Governance, risk and compliance software might not be the most exciting niche, but I really enjoyed improving the marketing systems, regardless of the industry. Being away from work for over a year gave me the new perspective upon my return. I saw the gaps and opportunities for improvement and wanted to get back into growing the marketing department.

At the same time, I was completely overwhelmed. Having a young child start daycare felt like I was missing a big part of his life. And although returning to work was exciting, I always felt like I'm about to drop some some of those precious work/life balance balls. Whether it was work, parenting, marriage or social life. I actually don't think I had much of a social life. Or maybe I had. It's a bit of a blur.

So I, myself, became a ball of mixed feelings and emotions, ranging from exhilaration to numbing fear. And it felt like I was falling towards the floor and I wasn't sure if my self will be there to catch me.

I remember going to the bathroom at work, looking in the mirror, and having to remind myself to breathe. Not because anything was bad or negative, but because there was a lot of new things to process.

* * * *

When I was in elementary school my mom taught me a little trick. She said if you need to remember to do something that day, you can draw a small cross on your wrist and when you look at it it will remind yourself to do it. I still use this trick today.

So during the time when I felt like many more balls got added to my juggling practice, I would write to-do lists to make sure I didn't forget anything.

Writing "breathe" in my to-do lists felt incredibly stupid next to "book a doctors appointment" and "monthly report", like it wasn't enough of a task.

So I started to put a little cross on my wrist. And when my anxiety got too bad, I would try to snap out of it by looking at the cross and associating it with doing breathing and grounding exercises I knew.

And it helped. I'd get the quickest release just by taking 3 deep breaths. And taking long pauses between them.

* * * *

Those days my son had a hard time falling asleep on his own. So my husband and I would alternate and stay in the room with him until he fell asleep. One evening I was lying on the floor next to his crib, in the dark and I had a glimpse of an idea. 

It was one of those moments when your mind becomes so empty it starts generating images that feels so real, like whatever you're imagining already exists. I saw a physical product that would act as a reminder to replace the cross on the wrist. A practical and elegant solution to help during the times when your mind feels like it's a middle of a storm. Something that may not be able to turn the storm into clear skies but rather can help you stay calm while the storm passes through. It was so real, I could almost touch it.

Jewelry was an obvious choice right away. It's something that one could have on them all day long. And it's discreet and intimate enough. I wanted to design something that looked like an accessory to the world but acted as a powerful cue to the person wearing it. Something they could easily access any time during the day. 

At that time I had to take the money out of the family budget to fund this side passion project. And just coming out of maternity leave, while having a child attend a $2K/month daycare - let's just say my budget was very limited.

Being fascinated with Kickstarter and feeling inspired by all the creative and innovative projects on there, I would often browse others' campaigns. Having supported a few projects on there before, I decided to try and launch my line of pins there as well. I figured, if I don't raise enough, Kickstarter would just give the money back to the supporters.

After researching and design, I settled on pins as being my first product line. I developed five pins for five meanings, each tied to an actual meditation, affirmation, mindfulness exercise, or breathing technique.

• Breathe

• In the moment

• I'm at peace

• I'm on the right path

• I am grateful

And to my surprise, I had 32 backers, some of which were my friends and family and some complete strangers help me fund my idea. I'm still forever grateful for the support I got back then that helped my turn the vision I had into reality. If you're one of those people, thank you. You can still see my project on Kickstarter.

Back then they were called just Mindfulness Pins, the name Thirty Todays came later. But it was the start of the Thirty Todays brand and the philosophy behind it.