Not Your (neuro)Typical Female Founder.
Onward, from here.
Every thirteen years, my plans for the future and life as I know it have ceased to exist, overnight and without warning— forcing me to accept the facts and reimagine the future, right where I stand; these aren’t the only times I’ve started over, of course, only the times a broken promise inverted reality.
I’ve always been different; I've always used music to communicate, and I’ve been starting over where I stand for as long as I remember.
My mom and I had one rule “you can “tell me anything, as long as it’s true,” and when she unexpectedly died on Dad’s weekend after promising we’d beat Cancer, like last time, my life became a battleground for narratives of subservience, abusive male power, control, and dominance, and I became trapped by cyclical violence of self-destruction, drugs, alcohol.
Before Life Uncommon became the name I gave my company as a newlywed in 2015, it was the song that saved my life while I picked up its pieces in 2005; I was 26, getting sober, starting over, and imagining a new forever after a broken promise I wouldn’t get drunk derailed the future I planned before saying goodbye to Northampton for six months with my Dad in Orange County, en route to a forever-that-never-happened in Dayton.
Massachusetts. California. Ohio.
I’d evacuated HB at 18, then all of Orange County at 22 when I cashed out my 401K, swore off Corporate America, and moved to Northampton, MA in one fell-swoop— as I cruised into 27 with my future figured out, I was excited about six months with Dad, and time with friends.
When alcohol incinerated my life plans and my future combusted, I was marooned at my Dad’s in HB— but thirteen years later, the broken promise was mine; hitting the exits and starting over were all I knew of life, and everything needed to change, but I found compassion for the hurt of making a promise you couldn’t keep, no matter how much you meant it.
My recovery began a conscious effort to change the default-settings for violence that accompany being born Evangelical and a girl, indoctrinated to Male Headship from birth, which I’ve learned (the hard way) creates a lifelong vulnerability to abusive male power, control, and dominance that is not resolved merely because I broke the cycle of violence in my personal life before I married.
I’ve been writing about my recovery journey since it began, and the calculus of giving purpose to the moments life has brought me to my knees and broken me is nothing new, and continues taking me to places I never imagined.
I was 10 years sober when I married Mark Sloan and joined the ranks of Female Founders instead of Lawyer-Moms with Life Uncommon and its former professional services arm 8616 Group, and I was 13 years sober when I recognized familiar danger, out-of-context, and in Life Uncommon’s new CoManaging Membership.
The Mission, Values, and Purpose that drove Life Uncommon reflected the way I live and the code I keep, and with Mark’s enduring love and support for my differences, not despite them, I honored it all the way here, where I stand amidst the wreckage of the life I built in my 2005 recovery and the Company I brought to life as a newlywed, to give purpose to the calculated cruelty of the humiliations I was subjected to by Lawyers in their Duty to myself and my Companies.
Our onward path will reimagine the future and give my foray into the Female Foundersphere purpose benefiting others in pursuit of Justice for all affected by my six-year-journey through a vortex of Second-Class-Citizenship with Life Uncommon and its former professional services arm, 8616 Group.
I believe that if I were supposed to be or do any different from here, this would’ve been someone else’s journey.
When I joined the ranks of Female Founders instead of Lawyer-Moms as a newlywed in 2015, I hit pause on my writing career to focus the first five years on Life Uncommon/8616 Group’s development, planning to resume work on my Young Adult Memoir “Most Likely to Self-Destruct” in year six, or 2021, but that didn’t happen.
Though I spent year six writing, it wasn’t “Most Likely to Self-Destruct.”
I spent 2021 writing to rebuild my capacity for organizing thought to speech,
I wrote to reconcile the dissonance between my lived experience and the record of LU/8616’s first five years, and
I wrote to reorient my mind to reality after inhabiting a charade that was bespoke to destroy me, and played out like The Truman Show from 2016-2020.
Life Uncommon’s 2016 payment for twin LU/8616 Operating Agreements anchored a charade of fraud, breaches, and betrayals to my reverence for the Law and privilege of its practice.
From 2016-2021, three unaffiliated male Lawyers used their Duty to my Companies to advance a professional adaptation of the cyclical economic and psychological violence commonly referred to as “invisible,” and typically seen in Women’s personal lives, expecting a smooth progression from my Consent entrusting partners to hold 51% to 100% Control of my two Companies by April 1, 2019, but that plan went one for two.
When I recognized danger, I left; my husband didn’t stop me or buy into the brovertures that tried to turn me into the problem. Unfortunately, the impairments manufactured to keep me from leaving caused me to accidentally retain Counsel who refused any role but Devil’s Advocate and insisted an Operating Agreement couldn’t be Rescinded for Fraud in the Inducement of Consent until prove-up, where The Court saw no issue Rescinding Life Uncommon’s 2018 OA and Awarding 50K damages for the fact.
At prove-up, he co-opted The Court’s request for a Judicial Council Form to exclude the basis “Fraud in the Inducement of Consent” from the Default Judgement Rescinding Life Uncommon’s 2018 OA, effectively denying Plaintiffs and former Defendant Life Uncommon the benefits of the Court-Awarded Remedy on August 6, 2020.
I don’t know if it’s a fact most new businesses fail in the first five years, or just something that’s commonly said, like “never trust a partner with the Majority,” but in 2015, LU opened an exit from the system, and in year three I broke the supposed Cardinal Rule twice— with Operating Agreements executed April 17th and November 12, 2018.
In year five, The Operating Agreement I signed first was Rescinded by The Court and 100% of Life Uncommon’s ashes and liabilities were restored to my personal holding.
I spent year six writing, reconciling the dissonance of the first five, and in year seven I’ll keep writing about my recovery, and Most Likely to Self-Destruct will become a blog about starting over and giving purpose to the combination of privilege and built capacity that brought me to my current position.
My life and Life Uncommon were reduced to ashes by the conduct of four male Lawyers, and others who believed my Consent to a CoManaging Membership that entrusted partners to hold 51% of Life Uncommon would be irrevocable, once obtained; one was Plaintiffs Counsel and the other three betrayed their Duty to my Companies to facilitate my fall from equal earner to dependent liability in my marriage, and succeeded, but ultimately went one for two in taking my Companies.
Since 100% of Life Uncommon’s ashes and liabilities were restored to my personal holding by The Court, I’ve been writing to reorient my mind to a reality in which women aren’t just worth Equal Protection— we have a right to it.
Like millions of American women, I know my enemy well; I just don’t always recognize them right away.
Though I remain isolated, I know I’m not alone— most Women in my shoes arrive by their partners or spouses and are protected by Lawyers if anyone protects them at all.
My fall from equal earner to dependent liability in my marriage was facilitated by three male Lawyers in their Duty to my Companies, and then the Lawyer I retained to protect me justified their conduct and compounded their abuses until everything but my marriage was dust, and The Court restored 100% of Life Uncommon’s ashes and liabilities to my personal holding.
Starting over where you stand is about creating a life, not fixing one— and living life uncommon has always been about giving purpose to all you’ve overcome.
Without ever making physical contact, the abusive male power, control, and dominance portrayed as Counsel rendered impairments so severe my recovery began with writing to organize thought to speech, and continues necessitating daily practice and vigilance.
I believe further recovery will come by attending the shameful, unnecessary wreckage of my life and Life Uncommon to remedy unpaid Employees, Landlords, vendors, and by addressing the catastrophic economic devastation caused by the specific conduct and betrayals of Duty by individual Counsel to Life Uncommon, 8616 Group, Working Partners Only, and me between 2016-2021.
“No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.”
— from “The Promises,” Alcoholics Anonymous