Who the fuck do you think you are?

8 a.m. on a Sunday in 2023. I was scheduled to work, and I woke up unable to walk, screaming in the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I’ve had skin cancer surgeries, broken ankles and fingers, and several concussions. NOTHING prepared me for the pain of my disc exploding into my spinal cord.

My health insurance was set to kick in one week later.

So, really: Who the fuck do you think you are? And what are people going to think when you show up differently?

I ask myself these questions on a regular basis. Existential questions and self-doubt come to the forefront when you’ve been kicked in the teeth like so many of us have been over the past few years. To understand how I ended up on that floor, you have to go back to where it started.

When I published my book, “Get Stuck In!,” in 2022, it was at the prodding of one of my closest friends. I was crying into my martini at a restaurant in San Francisco, whining to him about how I didn’t know what I was going to do now that I had sold my company and cities were finally opening up again after COVID.

I had zero idea what I was going to do during that period of time, and writing a book wasn’t on my radar. But I did it anyway. That same year, I also published a co-authored book project.