Latest / REBUILT: The Courage to Begin Again with Lorena Armitage / I’ve Started Over More Times Than I Can Count: The Story Behind REBUILT
Transcript
- Lorena: I never planned to be good at rebuilding. In fact, I actually think I would have preferred a life that required a lot less of it. But when I look back to it, almost every single chapter of my life has asked me to begin again, to enter a new country, to immerse myself in new careers, to create a new relationship with my body, or just to be a completely new version of myself. And to be quite honest, this started when I was just 10 years old. I want to walk you through that journey between moving countries and cultures, getting married, getting divorced, starting over in London, leaving an established career that took me 20 years to build, then becoming a mom, now creating a new product, and all of a sudden just realizing that these were all not just disconnected things. They were all part of my life's work. But before I tell you where rebuilt. almost came from, I want to go back to the first time where I remember having to become someone new. And and tell you exactly why this podcast exists and why rebuilding has become so much more than just a word or a thing to me. So let me quickly walk you through that and you'll realize why this is such an important piece of work. Let's call this chapter one. Rebuilding to be long. When I was just 10 years old, I moved to the United States. Not by choice, but because my parents decided that growing up in Colombia in the 80s was not that safe. And they found a way for us to move to the States and enroll me into a school. And we began a completely new life. I we left absolutely everything back in Colombia and I walked into this life without really knowing any English, speaking a lick of it really. and just changing complete cultures. I mean everything from what we ate to how we just talked to each other. And it really was just a complete shakeup from day one. I walked into a school where I couldn't really naturally communicate with people and I actually had to observe how people walked and how people dressed and how kids just related to each other, how being popular was the way of getting around. And while I couldn't really speak English, I started to just learn to observe people and to to learn a culture and to be part of a culture without even words, without even being able to express myself. it taught me that belonging is an important thing. It was my first experience at rebuilding even though I probably wouldn't have even called it that at that point. when I was 10, rebuilding didn't even feel courageous. It just felt necessary. And maybe that's it. The first rebuilding that happens in your life before you have the language to speak it, even if you are speaking the language of the country that you're in, is maybe a move of a family change or a loss, or simply realizing that the person that you were wasn't just going to fit into the next place where you moved or where you were going or where your family put you in, really. And you have to adapt. And As time went by and I learned to speak English and just really began to belong and be part of the culture, exactly just like that, when I felt in my groove, then life asked me to rebuild again. And this could actually be chapter two of my life. When I was 14 years old, life asked my dad and I to move back to Colombia. An immigration issue meant that Only him and I could go back to Colombia while my mom and my brother remained in the US. And I had already left that whole Colombian version of myself behind. And I had imagined myself going to high school in the US and I had created this whole future. I was going to go to college and and to be quite honest, I wasn't even really thinking about college. It was just about being, because for once I had had the means and even the language and and I felt like I finally belonged and all of that got stripped away all of a sudden. And I got placed back into school in Columbia where culture culture at that point felt just completely different all over again from that American culture that I had learned to navigate for four years. And when you're a teenager, four years is a lifetime. and then Life asked me to live without my mom for those really formative teenage years when I was between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. And in Latin culture, when you turn fifteen is a really big deal and and I had to do all of that without my mom. And I grew up really quickly, matured really quickly, and I had to again transform myself to a new version of myself and and create someone that was lot more mature than I needed to be for my age. but also someone that was just surviving. And this wasn't about just moving home. Colombia may have always been where I was born, but I had already changed and returning to a country that was mine while also feeling completely left out was was difficult. I mean I remember I was I was called The gringa, which is the Latin word for American, in my Colombian school. but I was in the country where I was born. So it was all about just that whole recreating myself and and moving chapters swiftly back and forth. And at this stage, rebuilding just meant meant to me just adaptation. I needed to adapt because I was. I still wanted to have those teenage years and I wanted to party and I wanted to have friends and I wanted maybe the the experience of you know boyfriends and all of those things. And I was learning to read a room and trying to understand a culture all over again and becoming who each environment was asking me to become and and it wasn't even asking me, it was needing me to become. It was it was a little bit of survival if you think about it. And all of those skills later on helped me professionally. And they also just raised a lot of questions of who am I underneath all of these versions that I learned to become. And of course, by the time that I had built my life again, you know, from 14 to 17, almost 18 years old in Colombia and And I did that quite successfully. I became the valedictorian of my graduating class. I graduated high school, had friends, and had become a full-blown Colombian teenager. It was time to leave again. And so came chapter three. When I was 18 years old, I returned back to the States. And this time it was a little bit more choice. It wasn't just you have to go, but I chose to return to the US because I truly believed that US college education would create a better future for me. And thankfully I had my brother to help guide me and my parents to hide me, guide me along that way. And although I had lived in the US before, I no longer felt like the same person that had left when I was fourteen. I mean, I had already four years had already passed and I had become a a young woman. And the teenager years that I had in Colombia had shaped my identity of this very South American woman and I had somewhat suppressed the American version of myself. And now I had to reintegrate that American lifestyle into my life and evolving adult versions of myself. And so I wasn't just starting this time with nothing. I had already lived in in the US and I was carrying a version of myself with me from when I had lived in the US when I was between the ages of ten and fourteen. But I just didn't really know how to make all of the parts of me come together so to fit smoothly into this new adult version of myself in what I would call a new country all over again. So I started evolving and I guess chapter four of my life was rebuilding through movement because I went to college in the US and when I completed college I entered a life in consulting and the work in consulting involves constant travel, new projects, new problems, new project teams. Every project required you to learn Really, really quickly and become really credible in a new environment every you know six months or every three months, depending on the length of your project. So consulting really suited someone like me who had already learned to adapt no matter where I was or who my identity was. it was easy for me. And climbing the ranks of consulting. was somewhat easy for me because I felt very familiar. Being rooted in one place for me was a lot less familiar. I mean, if you think about it, I had been moving my entire life. And I thought I was building a career, but to be honest, looking back, I was also turning adaptation into a professional skill. I mean, I enjoyed consulting and I built a lot of expertise and confidence and I learned a lot. and I was good at it. And now that I sit on this table and and on this side of the microphone, I know that rebuilding isn't always born from crisis. Sometimes it happens through growth and opportunity. And that's what consulting really gave me. And eventually, though I thought I was ready to stop moving and build a life that would stay still. And I was so Happy to do that. And that's when the next chapter came. I got married, and I settled where my family lived in Florida, which is also where I went to college. And so it felt familiar and it felt like a safe place. And after so many transitions, I actually thought that rebuilding might be over. And It really was for a period of time. I was married for eight years and I was in a relationship for ten. And when I thought, wow, this is what a settled life looks like, divorce happened. And the pain wasn't only about losing that relationship. It was also about losing the future and the identity I had built around that life all over again. the life of staying still and the life that I had imagined. Now I'm not gonna get lost in the details of what happened then. But there was really an existential shift in me of who I was when life organized around with no longer having to enter and exit places. And the the whole life change of Who am I again? Who truly am I at my core? And these are the circumstances in life that rebuild not just where we are physically, but rebuild us as humans. And that ask us to meet ourselves all over again. And this time, not as a kid, not as a young adult, but as a fully grown adult. woman who needed to make decisions and who needed to rebuild my life. And that's when chapter seven I think it is at this point happened. And I decided that throughout my life I had always wanted to live to I had always wanted to live in Europe. And so When I got divorced, it was the moment of now, it's now or never. And I felt like the decision was mine to make and I knew in my gut it was time to move and and to find the opportunities in consulting or in Europe. And as unrealistic as it sounded, I mean so many people told me, What what are you thinking? Like you can't just move countries, you can't just move to to London. I manifested, I truly manifested moving to London. And I'll go into a an a full episode about this later on in this podcast, but it was a full manifestation moving to London. I secured a role it was the opportunity of a lifetime. And so in 2018 I moved to London and I knew no one and I knew nothing, only that I wanted to move to Europe. And with just my suitcase, I and a an apartment that I had seen online, I moved to London and I began my life again. And for the first time, rebuilding wasn't only something life was doing to me. It was something I truly chose and it felt so empowering and it was proof that when we make decisions not just blindly walk into situations but when we truly make decisions and when we have the courage to make the very difficult decisions in life then life rewards us with whatever it is that we want to create now looking back the smallest act of of courage that changed everything. Wasn't just allowing myself to believe that London was possible. It was taking the first practical step I could see in front of me to making that happen. It was sending an email to everybody I knew that lived in London. And just like that, it happened. Now London gave me the life and the role that I always dreamt about. But Achieving one dream doesn't actually mean that you are done becoming. And this is where I shed that entire relationship with building a career, even though it was very fulfilling experience being a COO of an international company. I loved it, but I felt that that chapter came to a natural close after about four years. and I became a CEO of another consulting company. And I had built a life around 20 years of consulting experience to become a first-time founder. I decided I wanted to create my own thing. And so I left. I left consulting after I had the role of a lifetime, the the role that I always wanted. And I decided I was going to start all over again. And Again, this time with all the expertise of delivering work that I had learned throughout the years. I automatically became prepared to sell, to market, to operate an entire business on my own. I learned as I went through that business. And that is my consulting business, the second C. and I became every function of the company, j not just the COO. and it was very rewarding and it just truly led me to think that sometimes rebuilding doesn't mean abandoning everything that you know. It really just means taking everything that you know and that you've learned how to use and just use it in a completely different way. I didn't need to be building multinational companies. I could just be building my own company and helping small founders build their own companies. And so that's where the second C was born and and the branch of rebuilding companies, rebuilding businesses comes to life where I help companies rebuild their operations so they can grow and so that founders can actually achieve their dreams. Even before rebuilt had a name. Rebuilding was something that I was embedding in my work because it is part of my life's work. And then a year into having the second C, I became pregnant with Sienna, my daughter, who currently, at the time of the recording of this podcast, is almost a year and a half. I genuinely thought that I I was delusional. I really thought that I could continue building the second sea with a baby by my side at the side of my desk. And I truly just acknowledge how unrealistic that expectation is now. But I didn't know that then. I was I wasn't a mom. And that's when motherhood really changed my time, my priorities, my body and my identity. I truly thought that I was going to continue to be this super high power. corporate woman, this badass of a woman that I had always been but I was in a different way. I did have a business partner at the second C and during the early motherhood stages my business partner decided that she couldn't really continue the business while I was raising my very early young baby. So we decided to split. and I decided to keep the second seat going not necessarily the way that it had always been, but more intentional. More intentional into helping founders, helping people building portfolios of businesses, maybe people that were had built a business as much as they could and they either needed to retire or needed to leave and helping recreate those businesses because those businesses had a life. Much like Siena had been born, it was helping those businesses be reborn. And and that's currently what The Second C does. But then when I had Sienna and I became a mom, I was still this very professionally career driven woman, but I have always identified myself as a very physically active, I'm very fit, I do yoga, I run, I always look after my body. and having Sienna just was a real shift for me because after having a C section while it was planned Recovery that it required and and to look after the scar and my body, it took time. And while I was trying to take care of my baby and continue running a business, I realized that I didn't have enough time to be everything, to to be the mom, to be the the fitness girl, to run a business. I I truly wanted to do everything and and I truly thought and that I wanted a product that could support that C-section recovery consistently so that I could be the mom and that I could be the the corporate woman. but I couldn't quite find that. And that unmet need is what currently is the project that I'm working on, the side of helping women rebuild the confidence in their bodies. And that is what currently EaseC is. So is the branch of rebuilt about rebuilding confidence in women after having given birth through C-section. I'm now heavily leaning into product development, textiles, engineering, product manufacturing. It's a completely different world from where I have always been. and I am a complete beginner. I am truly rebuilding my identity. the product world is something that I had never delved into but it's something that I'm truly enjoying and and this product to help women rebuild confidence in themselves post C-section is currently being built. and I'm sharing this before I know exactly how it's all going to end because I have confidence in my ability to rebuild and to bring this to life. EaseC the name of of the post birth product that I am building, is being created to help women feel supported as they care for their C-section scars and they rebuild confidence in their bodies, not by demanding more time from them, but by fitting into the reality of motherhood, which is exactly what I needed when I became a mom. And then I realized after all of this, which brings me to now, that it all just comes together. It's the realization of what rebuilt has really meant in my life. The child adapting to a new language, the teenager separated from my mom, the young woman moving between countries and cultures and realities, to having a career. and changing projects every so often to then being married and divorced and starting all over in a new country, starting again in London, then becoming a high-powered COO and and leaving that career to become a founder and from being a founder to becoming a mother and and from a mother to a consultant to now. just building a physical product. And I realized that I had been treating all of these as separate chapters of my life. But eventually I actually saw the thread running through all of these things. And and it's what I call the golden thread. My life's work has always been rebuilding. So for the people rebuilding their identities, for The women rebuilding their bodies and their confidence, to founders rebuilding your businesses, or anyone standing between what was and what is coming next. People beginning again by choice and people who never ask to begin again, but are being thrown into those environments. This is for you. I am not creating this podcast because I have completed every rebuild. And can explain life from the other side. If anything, I was thrown many times into rebuilding and got taken out of those chapters in the middle of them. But I am creating this because I am still in it. I truly believe there is value in telling the truth from the middle, from that messy middle. So If there is something in your life that is asking you to rebuild, I want you to know that you don't need an entire plan today. You just need enough courage to take that next step. Every beginning will ask something new of you. It may take you outside of everything that feels familiar for you, but each time that you begin again, believe me, I know, each time you begin. You have the opportunity to become someone You just couldn't have met by staying where you were. And that is why Rebuild exists. Because we need to share the stories, the choices that we make, the smallest acts of courage, and the honest work behind creating what comes next. I don't really know exactly. Where every part of even my own story will lead. I mean, I am building rebuilt with the branch of rebuilding businesses, rebuilding courage, and rebuilding stories. And I really don't know where everything will land, but what I do know is that I am ready to tell that story. And I am grateful that you are here right at the beginning. So If today's conversation gave you the courage just to take the next step because you don't know what that step is or because you're in the middle of it or you've taken the next step and you just need to take that next one. If anything about the life that I have shared helped you keep going with where you already are, then I've done what rebuild exists to do. So until our next episode with a guest in it, sharing their story of rebuilding, please just keep on rebuilding. I can't wait to continue sharing stories and for you to take your next step.