About a year ago I met graphic designer and illustrator Kimberle Schwede, at Internations San Francisco. We recently reconnected and she sent me a message over facebook, sharing that she was starting a new local chapter of CRAVE, and asked if I would be interested in being a speaker at the first event?  CRAVE is a member organization with a collection of innovative shops and businesses created by women. The CRAVEfuel event would have the title Freakout Moments – inspired by Halloween.

My immediate response was: “Yes! Which freakout moment should I shoes?” – associated misspelling, having all the shoe stories from the last years entrepreneurial journey in my mind.

The event last night was in a small intimate setting at NextSpace Portrero Hill in San Francisco.  We were three speakers covering the topic, and all 12 participants got a chance to share what is going on in their life, what they could need help with, and receive feedback and support from all.

The three ‘freakout moments’  leading to the key lessons learnt that I had chosen to share during my 10 minutes were:

1. Taking over running a shoe business without even a shoe string budget
2. Spending the time of the photo shoot at the police office
3. Shoe theft makes it to the media 

The bottom line take away was to turn things around and disconnect from the fear of failure. A topic I could easily expand to a much longer presentation.

And as a successful entrepreneur and investor told me in a conversation last week-end:

“You always realize once you have gone through something, that you needed the experience.”
Calum Smeaton, CEO TV Squared

I do know, that all of this have served me in many ways, and prepared me for what will come. Would I do it again, had I known what it would entail? Probably not. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.

When putting together the slides for the CRAVE fuel presentation, I smiled, as I suddenly realized what I could use the photos from the last photo shoot to. Half a year ago photographer Steven Gregory  reached out to me and said: “Johanna, I have this vision of a photo of you covered with shoes.” As I was pairing up all the 110 shoes and boxes in my living room after the One Year Anniversary Shoe Exhibition and pop-up store at Dolce Amore Art Gallery and Cafe, I took a photo of the scene and sent him with the message: “If you still want to take that photo – now is the time!”.

Later that afternoon the boxes were neatly put together, and Steven came over with all his gear for the shoot. It was inspired by the photo of Whoopi Goldberg, peering out of a bathtub filled with milk by Annie Leibovitz . We were playing around and Steven asked for different expressions and actions, and all the time when doing it, I was thinking “and what can I possibly use this for? Appropriately.” This was the time.

AND… now I just learnt that Whoopi herself has size 11 in shoes! There might be another reason… If you know Whoopi, or anyone with hard to find size 10-12 in shoes: please let them know about www.llxllq.com – larger size Italian handmade shoes! It is a shoe heaven for women who have had difficulties finding shoes. And it has been created with love by Lucia Lucka Klansek, and launched with determination no-matter what by signed, and supported by wonderful co-creators and collaborators to make them known and available for those who do need them.

To all of our successes and confident filling of big shoes – literarily and metaphorically!  

Johanna