Somewhere on a beach in Panama, there's probably a shell wondering why it wasn't chosen.
Because apparently, I decided that bringing home a ridiculous number of its friends was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
At the time, I had no idea that those shells would eventually lead me down a rabbit hole involving jewellery pliers, gold wire, website design, business registration, photography, pricing strategies and more than a few colourful words directed at tiny pieces of metal.
I just thought they were pretty.
And now?
Ten necklaces, a website and one rather nervous creator later, I've officially launched my very own jewellery collection.
What the shell happened?
Looking back, I think somewhere between that beach in Panama and launch day, I discovered that curiosity and courage make a pretty good team.
Curiosity gets us started. Courage gets us across the finish line.
Curiosity doesn't require you to know what you're doing. It just asks you to be interested enough to find out.
And I was certainly interested.
Interested enough to buy jewellery-making supplies without having the faintest idea how to use half of them.
Interested enough to spend an unreasonable amount of time figuring out how to attach a pearl to a shell.
Interested enough to keep experimenting, even when my first attempts looked considerably better in my imagination than they did in my hands.
For years, one of the things I encouraged the people on my team to do was stay curious.
Ask questions. Challenge assumptions. Keep learning.
It was something I genuinely believed made us better at what we did.
Funny thing is, I never imagined I'd eventually need to take that advice quite so literally myself.
But the reality is that I didn't retire from learning. I retired into the freedom to learn whatever caught my curiosity.
And that might be one of the most beautiful things I’ve discovered between my two tides.
From my first attempt at wrapping a piece of wire around a shell to launching an actual jewellery business, I became a beginner again.
And I discovered that curiosity is a whole lot easier to encourage when you're not the one holding the pliers.
But curiosity kept me going.
One necklace became another. And another.
Eventually, I had ten pieces that I was genuinely proud of. They had names, descriptions, photographs and prices.
They weren't just shells I'd picked up on a beach anymore.
They were a collection.
My collection.
And that's when curiosity needed a little help.
Because making something is one thing.
Putting it out into the world and asking other people to decide whether they love it enough to buy it?
That's something else entirely.
That's where courage comes in.
I had to stop fussing over the little details, stop wondering whether everything was quite right, and accept that there would always be something I could tweak, improve or reconsider.
At some point, I had to decide it was time.
I've spent a lot of time waiting to feel ready.
Ready to make the first necklace.
Ready to call it a collection.
Ready to put a price on something I'd made with my own two hands.
Ready to let someone else decide whether they loved it as much as I did.
And somewhere along the way, I realized something.
Maybe ready isn't a feeling.
Maybe it's a decision.
So here I am. Ten necklaces, one website, a registered business and a whole lot of lessons learned.
Am I ready?
I think so.
Am I nervous?
You bet.
But the tide doesn't wait until we're ready.
And apparently, neither do I.
Until next time, may a small wave of inspiration find you.
