One Swell Shell

I first met Shelli, her husband, Aaron, and their son, Rory at the pediatricians office. Their son was two months old at the time (he's now two and a half) and mine was 8 months.

They had that exhausted, just been hit by a Mack truck air that new parents have about them, but they were very cheerful and seemed way cool. In the course the conversation we struck up, they suggested, " We should exchange numbers and get together sometime." "Yeah, we should," I replied just before heading into the doctor's office with my husband, Robert, and my son Max.

Here I admit for the first time my initial thought when I meet someone here in Los Angeles and they say "We should exchange numbers and get together" which is... I don't believe them. I've encountered many insincere people here, and to me, "we should exchange numbers" seems to be a polite way of saying, "Hey, it was nice talking with you. We will never talk again, but here's an easy way to end our conversation." And I'm sure there's also an element of just plain forgetting. As parents we get so busy that if something's not staring us in the face, it just won't get addressed.

So when we came out of our appointment, I was surprised to see Aaron come smiling towards us holding a little slip of paper with their contact info.

Wanting to call them on their "bluff" right away, I phoned up the next afternoon and said, "So, would you like to get together in the next couple of days?" That way it wouldn't be on me if nothing came of our conversation.

Shelli called back right away, a good sign, but I didn't have the opportunity to call her back right away.

I should digress for one moment and say here that Max was a severely poor sleeper and the first two years of his life were a real challenge for my husband and me... No lie, no exaggeration, from the time he was born till just a couple of months ago, Max would wake up screaming, and I do mean screaming, anywhere from between 10 to 30 times a night. My husband had a history of night terrors, and Max appears to have inherited this gene.

We tried everything, EVERYTHING, but all to no avail.

I thank God for a dear friend of mine whose son went through the exact same thing. She told me I needed to hang on until Max was about 2 and a half to 3 years old before I would start to get relief. And she was spot on. I am positively relishing getting 6 hours of sleep in a row now.

But back when I met Shelli, I was still mired in the excrutiating hell of exhaustion from Max's sleep problem. So, I didn't return her call right away.

She called me a couple of days later to ostensibly find out how we were (now she admits she was hormonal and just plain wanted to find out why we weren't calling her back) but I was really impressed that she persisted, so we agreed to get together the next evening.

We went to their house, right down the street from ours, for dinner.

In that getting to know you phase, I mentioned to Shelli that my husband and I were very excited about a job of his. We'd just read the CEO's book and were all jazzed by what he'd written and we were looking forward to seeing how Robert was going to progress in the company. He was starting out as an assistant manager.

Shelli asked me where he was working, and I said, "He's with Starbucks."

Shelli called Aaron on in to the living room and asked, "Do you know where Robert's working?"

And Aaron just replied, "I just heard from Robert." (Apparently they were doing the same getting to know you thing, while Aaron prepared dinner)

Then Shelli turned to me and Robert who'd followed Aaron into the room and said," That's my store!" Turns out Shelli was the regional director for Starbucks and was one of Robert's superiors. He'd heard of one of the directors being out for maternity leave, and here we were right in her house.

I was really intrigued to know more about her. I've never had much contact with anyone who'd had a corporate career and I thought it was really impressive that she'd been with the company for fourteen years and risen through the ranks to her current position.

As our relationship with the Taylors deepened, I found myself getting more and more impressed. When Shelli returned to work after her leave, I got to hear what her career was like and what some of her accomplishments were... again, we'll have a bio up at One Wee World for her, and everything she shared with me spoke to me of how much integrity, drive, and commitment she pours into her work.

Being around her, I could see that she brought all of those attributes to how she parents as well. It's clear that in everything she does, Rory is the light of her life. Her commitment to growth as a parent was as much a priority to her as mine is to me, and I gravitated toward that.

Shelli's no-nonsense attitude, her sharp intellect, and her desire to really impact the world in a positive way creates this presence about her that lets you know that if you've got her on your team, you are well on your way to success.

And getting Shelli onto the Wee team as our advisor was an incredible stroke of good fortune. I got the idea for One Wee World just two weeks before Shelli was scheduled to take a sabbatical to focus on spending time with Rory.

When I approached her and Aaron to ask for their help, I was greeted with a wonderfully enthusiastic response to my idea. They thought it was great.

But I wasn't in the clear yet. Shelli was committed to spending the year with her son, so she felt very conflicted about getting involved in our start-up project in any capacity. Luckily for me, Shelli decided that she'd like to be a part of the company in the role of advisor. We could come to her for help in creating our business plan and crafting a marketing strategy.

Whoo-hooo!!!!!!! JACKPOT!

Her advice has been just invaluable, and I'm grateful to the core for her generosity in sharing her expertise with us. SHELLI ROCKS!

But maybe not as much as her husband, Aaron. : ) On any given day you can walk up to their house and hear some rockin' rockabilly music blaring through the windows. So Aaron "rocks" in his own unique way, which has already helped ensure One Wee World's future success.

My next post'll be about our belovedest friend and business partner, the one, the only, Aaron Taylor.