Dianna Cohen

Most of my well-being is reflected by what’s happening with work. I’m very fortunate in my relationship, my husband and I have been together for eight years and I’m close with my family. I’ve had the same best friends since kindergarten. So my personal life is very steady, which is super helpful when growing a business.

As an entrepreneur, especially when you’re working from home, you can see your team all the time on Zoom or we’ll safely fly people to see others offsite. But you feel like you’re in a bit of an echo chamber. A really good analogy is when you’re on social media and you’re lying in bed, so you don’t move any physical energy. But that’s a massive energy exchange. Then you put your phone down for 30 minutes and you think, wow, I just went through a lot. So much happens in a day and five days of the week can feel like a month. It’s hard to anchor things because I don’t have the visual cues. So that’s been a little disorienting. But moving out of New York after 12 years, I truly feel so grateful every day. It’s a lot more balanced.

If you are an entrepreneur, then your mental health would not be good if you were not entrepreneuring. This is all I know. I was always a little bit of a rebel in places where I worked. I was always trying to move things faster, push things forward, take risks. So now, running my own company, I get to make those decisions and fully be in what it is that I feel.

Being my own boss is amazing. It’s also really challenging. People who are entrepreneurs, you’ve got to be able to go through the high highs and the low lows. It’s a lot more personal. I’m obviously not my brand, but it is my identity in a sense based on the brand’s visual literacy, the product, the amount of heart and soul our team puts into the design, the product development, the packaging. Even when other brands and founders copy you, it feels so much more personal.

Self-worth doesn’t get in the way. I’ve gotten such a thick skin over the last two or three years that if something doesn’t work, you say, okay, cool. Onto the next. It isn’t to say that it doesn’t mentally impact me, but I’ve figured out strategies now to be like, this isn’t about me. But it really takes time. All people, not just entrepreneurs, have imposter thoughts. Adam Grant calls them imposter thoughts instead of imposter syndrome because syndrome feels like this daunting thing. Where thoughts come and go.

Being a woman in this society is one of the toughest things. As much as I like sharing on social, which is nominal, that’s not my job. So I share when things are positive. I’m not really a vulnerable person except for with very few people in my life, which is okay. Those are my people and I have that space with them. But I, as a woman, am constantly told that you are not enough.

I definitely feel shame around not enoughness. I’m started working with a new coach a little less than a year ago, who has been incredible. She’s a spiritual coach who really focuses on visualization. And when I do my sessions with her, I close my eyes and we imagine and look at what the ego looks like and what shame looks like, and creating a visual universe around these feelings has been very helpful. I have a very long way to go. But they’ve been great tools to identify when I feel shame. And it’s mostly around not-enoughness, which I think all of us feel.

Intimacy is huge for me and similar to vulnerability; there are very few people that I am that way with. I have maybe five people in my life, including my husband, my sister, and then a handful of best friends who I can be that way with.

Part of the magic of my husband Alex and I, being together for eight years, it always felt really open. We’re partners in the truest sense, professionally, personally, sexually, emotionally, and he’s one of the very few people that I feel fully myself with.

Everyone says I need to get over my inbox and inbox zero. It’s so silly. My inbox legitimately causes me stress. But by the way, I’m so not unique in this. And it’s entirely because I make it my to-do list, which is 101 of de-stressing your life. If there’s an addiction I have, it is around working. I’m very lucky that all other areas of my life are very balanced. But when it comes to work, I have had to put so much work into rewiring around productivity. For the last four months, I’ve been really focused on resting. Part of why Alex is such a good partner for me is because on weekends he’ll say stop moving, stop doing, just be.