Starting a business: the next leg of my impact journey
Today, I’m excited to announce the founding of Hower Impact, a new company that partners with purpose-driven businesses and people to help realize their full potential for positive impact.
The world’s greatest sustainability strategy is only as effective as a company’s ability to communicate it. That’s why I work with companies to translate their sustainability strategy into authentic, effective stories that engage stakeholders into action in the service of social, environmental, and financial goals. My services include everything from communication strategy to ESG reporting, and content services to thought leadership, among others. And I partner with agencies and consultancies to support with their own clients’ sustainability communication challenges.
Meanwhile, the corporate sustainability profession is in crisis — companies can’t find the talent they need to succeed, and people in a growing talent pool can’t find the jobs they want. That’s why I launched the Impact Hired initiative, which creates networking experiences, shares sustainability and ESG knowledge, and tells inspirational stories. While I’m just beginning to explore the possibilities, to start this will be a central hub where sustainability professionals can more easily find their way.
Over the past 15 years of my personal impact career journey, I’ve tried, failed, learned, and grown more than I’d ever thought possible. Starting my own business is the next leg of this journey. I’ll tell you why.
Coming from a long line of entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is in my blood. A few years after World War II, my grandfather borrowed $600 from a friend to start his own auto repair business. Hower Auto grew to become a trusted institution in my hometown of Burlingame, California — a small town thirty minutes south of San Francisco. Eventually, my dad and uncle took over the business and continued my grandfather’s legacy of connecting with customers to help them identify and address their problems. My first job was sweeping the filthy floors of the auto repair shop.
When I was seven, I would “proactively” rake neighbors leaves cluttering their lawns. When they’d return home to find me unexpectedly raking, they’d usually toss me a couple of dollars — out of pity or endearment I don’t know. Earlier in my career, I’d often pick up side hustles to feed my entrepreneurial fire. But I never felt confident enough to leave my full-time gig to pursue this full time.
Over the past four years, I learned the ropes of building a business during my time leading client engagement at thinkPARALLAX. I helped bring in millions of dollars worth of revenue, and countless world-class companies to the client roster. Beyond the money, I saw the power in connecting with companies to identify their sustainability and ESG problems and offering solutions. Just as my dad connected with clients to offer trusted auto repair solutions, I felt I could do the same with companies and sustainability.
All the while, I spoke with hundreds of aspiring impact individuals through my Impact Hours to offer what counsel I could on breaking into this peculiar profession. Time after time, I’d tell them to believe in themselves and stay the course; to not be afraid to try things and fail and learn and grow.
I began noticing a visceral feeling that the time had arrived for me to start my own business. I had finally developed the network, expertise, and credibility to succeed on my own steam. But a mental heckler stopped me by saying: “What if you fail?”
Life happens, and alters my course
For a while, the mental heckler was winning. Who was I to think that I had what it took to succeed as an entrepreneur? How would I pay my bills if I left my 9-5 gig? What if I put myself out there, and nobody showed up?
Everything changed about six months ago when my dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer in the bones. His condition deteriorated quickly, and I found myself serving as a caretaker for my dad, and emotional support for my mother. Over several months, we were in and out of the hospital for one thing or another.
On New Year’s Day while taking a break at my home in Sacramento, I received an urgent call from my mother saying that my dad was having seizures, the paramedics had come to take him to the hospital, and I needed to drop whatever I was doing and get back to the Bay Area. Frantically throwing some clothes in a bag, I grabbed my dog and jumped in the car.
Two hours later, I arrived at the hospital in Burlingame just before my dad went into surgery. I learned that he had suffered a ruptured aorta, was bleeding internally, and was unlikely to survive. My mother told my brothers and I to go in and say our goodbyes. Entering the emergency room, I saw my dad laying there delirious and pasty from blood loss as multiple doctors and nurses worked frantically on him.
But I refused to say goodbye. Growing up, my dad’s unwavering optimism had shown me the value of a positive, can-do attitude — even in the face of hopelessness. I was determined to send him every electron volt of positive energy I could muster.
“You got this, Dad,” I said. “You have the best doctors helping, and you are going to get through this. I love you.”
I left the room fully expecting to never see my dad alive again. It was one of the worst possible scenarios I could imagine for losing a loved one.
The doctors rolled my dad away to the surgery ward, and my mother, brothers, and our partners moved to a waiting room. Each minute and hour dragged on like an eternity, and we alternated between crying and laughing about good memories of my dad. Finally, the surgeon emerged and told us that the surgery had been successful — they had stopped the internal bleeding and done a bypass to ensure his blood got to where it needed to go. He was now heavily sedated and breathing with a respirator. And while he would live for now, we weren't out of the woods yet.
Over the next few days, I sat by my dad’s hospital bed as he lay intubated and unconscious in the ICU. To pass the time, I found myself thinking about Hower Impact and what it could be. After facing one of the scariest experiences of my life, the effect of mental heckler’s words began to wane.
A few days later, the doctors took my dad out of sedation and off the respirator. It was like he was back from the dead — cracking jokes and talking the ear off of any hapless nurse that happened his way. As each day passed, the chances that he would make it increased. They moved him out of the ICU and onto the step-down floor.
One day, while tapping away on my laptop by his bedside, my dad asked me what I was doing.
“Just working on an idea for a business,” I told him. “I don’t know if it would work, but my gut is telling me that it’s time I try doing my own thing.”
My dad took a sip of orange juice and said: “You should do it. What do you have to lose?”
If you’re ever looking for some fresh perspective, spend time visiting a hospital. Many of our social fears are predicated on the unconscious expectation that we will all live to be one hundred years old. That’s because our health is easy to take for granted until it’s suddenly gone.
Thinking about my dad’s question, I realized that I had nothing to lose. There is just as much risk in staying on the common path as leaving it, and at the end of my life I wouldn’t be kicking myself for the things I tried and failed at — but the things I wanted to but never tried.
Only about 5 percent of people who suffer an aortic rupture live to tell the tale. But my dad beat the odds. He got better, and they sent him home. And now, a few months later, he is now healed and back on his treatment plan for the multiple myeloma, marching ever closer to remission. He is doing better than ever, and we are optimistic about his prospects for recovering from this disease and getting back to a normal life.
‘Just go for it’
Over the past several months, I’ve connected with many in my network who have chosen the path of entrepreneurship.
One person who had started her own successful sustainability consulting business told me: “Just go for it. Put yourself out there, be available, let people know what you're about and what you can do.”
And so, here I am, going for it. Hower Impact is officially open for business. I look forward to working with you.
