How I Coped Being CEO

I tried it all. Nothing was working.

46 days ago I stepped away from my role as CEO at Lex. If it’s queer, it’s on Lex.

It might sound odd but I didn’t exactly plan to build a company. It’s not like I went to business school or a startup accelerator. My priority was to bring queer people together with this cool idea I had. It was my dedication to the community that kept driving me to grow Lex. I struggled with identifying as CEO. I proclaimed myself a “reluctant CEO” during a fireside chat with the team at Bumble. Running a company is hard and most definitely not for everyone. Especially me.

Sweet team Lex gifted me this shirt for my birthday.

Earlier this year I was preparing for my introductory call with Liz Tran executive coach, writer, speaker and sometime astrologist. I had been a super fan of Liz’s podcast Reset and was lucky enough to have her take me on as a client/student.

To prep for the intro call with Liz made I made a list
(printed here with some added notations)

How I handle/d being a CEO:

• 💊 60mg Prozac and some amount of Klonopin prescribed by psychiatrist (same Prozac dosage as Tony Soprano)

• 👟 Long walks (if I could manage anxiety enough to leave house and pass people on the street)

• 📣 Public speaking coaches (I could barely say my name without crying, quit, and got into therapy)

• 🧠 Psychotherapy (left because I didn’t connect with the therapist, often made me feel worse)

• 🪡 Acupuncture for anxiety(2 sessions, then I quit because he kept asking me about working at a startup)

• 💧 Crying

• 🍷 Drinking wine alone

• 📺 Trash TV (thanks Bravo)

• 🥖 Eating bread or bingeing

• 💤 Sleeping a lot, 3 hour naps

• ✏️ Working with another stellar coach, Morgan

• 🐶 Puppy (best idea yet)

• ☎️ Calls with lawyer

• ☎️ Calls with advisors

• ☎️ Calls with 2 founder/CEOs that get it

• 👩🏼‍💻 Bringing on Jenn as co-founder

• 🧼 Massages and facials (sometimes they helped)

• 🧘🏼‍♀️Yoga (but not in NYC, too stressful being 1 inch away from other people’s mats)

• 🛩 Emotionally buying plane ticket on whim (having breakdown every time I stepped away from NYC)

• 😌 Magnesium

• 💪 Various fitness regimens: jogging, crossfit, that step machine that went viral on TikTok, biking to office and all over city.

• 💚 Writing a post on Instagram “coming out” as CEO (last ditch effort to change my mindset) It did not work

It’s been three years and I still wasn’t coping. Some things on the list above helped and I’ve adapted into my post-CEO life. Some things on the list hindered (ahem, drinking alone) and I’ve let it go.

It wasn’t all terrible – I had an incredible group of people around me building Lex. What kept me moving forward with curiosity, determination and the challenge of it all. I am now equipped with so much knowledge about cultivating a company and its people, it’s a process I’m proud to have gone through.

What I learned about me:

• Being a founder is something I truly find appealing and very ✨me✨ (in Human Design I am a proud Manifestor – thanks to Liz Tran and Jennifer Lewis for introducing me to this reading)

Now I’m taking time for me to heal and rest. Unknotting some of the bad habits I developed over the years. I’m very fortunate to have this space and support from the team to find myself again. I left NYC and now live full time in the Hudson Valley walking nature trails, cooking elaborate stews, watching deer scamper across the lawn, weight training, frequenting libraries, and attending a color theory class at RISD.

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Resources I suggest if you’re ~going through it~

• The Karma of Success by Liz Tran

• Columbia Land Conservancy for long nature walks

• Your public library

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This is my first post on Substack. Who knows where this will take us. More soon. Thanks for reading. If you have questions, comments, concerns email: rakowwwski@gmail.com