In
the Spotlight
Personal Vignettes
from the book, Time
Off for Good Behavior
Courtney P.
was the quintessential Internet entrepreneur of the late
nineties. An easy socializer with
a theatrical bent, she created a business of
hosting parties called Cocktails with Courtney in
New York’s Silicon Alley to bring together
investors, advertisers and technology innovators.
A writer and publisher, she chronicled the events
in her own newsletter called, The Cyber Scene.
For four years, before the bubble burst, she
had a sexy, skyrocketing career as the “Contessa
of Tribeca.”
Her life sounded glamorous but the
hours were anything but. She recalled a typical day. “I
would get up around six or six-thirty
A.M. and run five or six miles, rain or shine, sleet or
snow. Then I would get into my full regalia of
a suit and heels and start making calls for the
events and answering emails. At six P.M. or so,
I would head out to two, three or four
events until about ten P.M. each night. Then I’d
go home to answer more emails, prepare another
proposal, get a press kit together, work on my
newsletter and then go to bed between midnight
and two A.M. That was six days a week. Sunday,
I’d crash”.
Courtney loved her work and bit by bit let it
become the sum of her late-twenties existence.
Like other good girls, her life narrowed to include
only her job and the simple pleasures
of life slipped away. “I’d read those stories
in Wired magazine where they asked, ‘What
book are reading now?’ and I was surprised
to realize that I never read a book that whole
time. I was so busy just trying to keep up with
the daily running of my business. When
people would ask, ‘What do you do for fun?’ I
would wonder, ‘Sleep?’ Everything
during that time was really all about my work.
Yes, there were parties and sure there were moments
when I was having fun, but it really was my job.”
Courtney rationalized that the success was worth the stress and the busyness. “It
was really, really insanely busy, but it also was very energizing as much as
it was exhausting because I fed off the energy of other people.
The frenetic pace that everyone was experiencing really kept
me going.” She bought into the “everybody’s
busy” gospel. She likened her
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endurance and her adrenaline
rush to the experience of running a marathon. “Even
if you’re at the twenty-sixth mile and you hit the
wall, you still have two rows of people cheering you on.
Like running a race, even if my
body isn’t in it anymore,
I’m just being pushed by the momentum. So I just keep
going.” Courtney kept running until she hit
a financial wall.
“I felt like all I could do was curl up
in a ball and sleep. I definitely knew that I
needed to give myself a nice long amount of time off. I knew I couldn’t say, ‘I’m
taking a few weeks’ or taking a month. I just said ‘I’m
taking a year’. And I did.”
Thanks to her time off, Courtney is now approaching her
next career with open eyes. “It took me a full year
and I’m just now getting to feel
like the wheels of inspiration are beginning to start creak
forward again. “I
learned that I don’t have to be the number one star.
Part of my "time off" learning is that I just cannot
muster the energy to get the "public Courtney" out
there when internally I'm exhausted. That's one of my biggest
discoveries and the thing that I'm working on -- doing
what Courtney really wants, not just what the ‘Courtney-people-think-they-know’ wants.”
“A life means so many more things than
what’s
in your bank account or how well-known you are. Money really
doesn't buy happiness. Having the fanciest life and being
famous isn’t important to me anymore. I am beginning
to understand what I really want, but taking time to let
it solidify and still searching on the path to get me there.
Whatever I do, I’ll be happy doing it. I know I can
move on.”
Excerpt from Time Off for Good Behavior,
Copyright © 2005
by
Mary
Lou
Quinlan
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .
More Excerpts:
Lisa
B.'s
Story
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" A
must-read
for every high- achieving woman who's working
more and enjoying it less.
If you've ever wanted to step
out of the rat
race and start living your dreams, this book is the
perfect guide."
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—
Carole Black
President,
Lifetime TV
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