Co-Founder Reflections: Boy, have things changed...
Co-Co Co-Founders, Suzanne Willian, Lynne Pagano, and Lauren Decker reflect on their journeys of life and career.
Suzanne Willian
Speed-work, tempo runs, and recovery workouts build a runner’s strength, speed, and stamina and prepare her to successfully go the distance. My COVID experience feels a bit like marathon training. It includes intense effort in both sustained and short bursts and slower-paced recovery time.
Speed-work: The COVID shut down prompted my husband and me to downsize in NJ and spend more time at our home in Wyoming. We were planning to make this change in the future; COVID shrunk the timeline dramatically. We bought a town-home in a day and moved out of our family home in less than 90 days. With support from family and friends, John and I made a strong team through a fast, intense effort.
Tempo Run: Leading The Co-Co community through the COVID crisis and towards a new normal is a sustained, threshold effort. In runner speak, a tempo run. Honest and intentional communication through this challenging time has strengthened the supportive partnership I share with Lynne and Lauren and our confidence in the value, impact, and opportunity this community offers our members.
Recovery Run: Collaboration with The Co-Co team and members on events and programs offers me a welcoming space to explore new ideas. I used the quiet COVID months to reflect on these learnings and the ways I want to grow personally and professionally. I discovered a desire for more creativity in my life. The Artist’s Way course and Co-Co Creative Cohort will be guiding my next steps.
My run is more inspired when life and career values align. I’m profoundly grateful that supportive, authentic relationships are valued in my personal life and my professional life - in my family, with my friends, within The Co-Co community. Thank you for being my training partners. Together, we are building strength, speed, and stamina and successfully going the distance.
Lynne Pagano
Boy, have things changed since we started The Co-Co in October 2018! The amount of growth and change in my life, both personally and professionally, in the last four years has been incredible but somewhat normative for my age cohort. I have become an empty nester, put my beloved dog to sleep, attended my children’s college and high school graduation ceremonies, and bought a condo in Florida. Does not sound very unique does it? Well throw in a global pandemic and the shut down of the entire world (still seems unbelievable!) and the last four years have been stressful, inspiring, bizarre, frustrating and fantastically unique. The unintended family time was a surprise blessing with my immediate family but the unintended separation of time with my mother and siblings was super sad and time that we will not get back.
When my grandchildren ask me what I did during the pandemic of 2020 when the world was shut down, I can say with pride that I kept a business running, continued to pay our employees throughout the year, surprisingly grew our membership year over year and did it with a community of supportive women by my side. As we have seen throughout history, women thrive and grow within community. There were tears, uncertainty and second guessing but lots of laughs and respect mixed in. These things happen every day at The Co-Co--with or without a global flipping pandemic.
Lauren Decker
In winter 2018, I met my now co-founders. At the time, The Co-Co was an idea, a dream for a community where women would support and inspire one another, wherever they were on the journey of life and career. It was an idea that resonated with me. I was an aspiring independent consultant building a new network local to NJ following more than a decade working at organizations in NYC and a mother of a 2 and 4 year old. This idea resonated with our future members too. You showed up again and again in “listening events” and ultimately at a pre-launch event where 6 women shared their stories, 5 co-founders presented their business plan, and 70+ people signed up to be a part of a community before we even had a physical space. Because, as we’ve learned since March 2020, we’ve always been a community first.
Now, nearly four years later, I have a kindergartener, a third grader, and a baby girl due in September. I count my co-founders as dear friends, women in my inner circle who I greatly admire, and with whom I can be my whole self.
In winter 2019, we launched a business, along with you. In February 2020, we toasted to our one-year anniversary with a heart-filled team of colleagues and more than 200 people gathering in our light-filled space. A month later, we needed to close that space and begin hosting events virtually. You showed up again to support and inspire one another. You lived the values of this community--growing authentic relationships, being curious about one another’s unique stories, sharing and listening honestly and intentionally, learning and exploring new ideas, and together, you created value, impact, and opportunity... even in the most unforeseen circumstances of a global pandemic.
Thank you for being a part of our story and for supporting me, and us, on this journey. We’ve done it together… with you and for you, with all of the wonderful surprises, heartaches, and opportunities that have come our way throughout. Today, we’re toasting to you, again, and to the ways you’ve developed and changed, welcomed and resisted, and ultimately persisted, in this community and in your families and work. We can say with certainty, it’s been more fun to take it all on together, day by day, and we will continue to do just that.
We would love to hear your story! Get involved in The Co-Co community and learn more here.