Becoming Ruthlessly Hopeful: The Seed Sprouts

It was the spring of 2022, and just like the seeds that were starting to come up outside, the seed for Ruthlessly Hopeful sprouted and started to grow. I decided to take the invitation to spread the word about hope that the authors of Hope Rising included in their book to heart and do just that. I was going to share the benefits and power of it. I also saw it as a chance to pay forward the hope I had been given when I was diagnosed with and treated for cancer by perhaps giving someone else the gift of hope when they needed it.

Voilá Ruthlessly Hopeful

The name came when I recalled two consultants I worked with years earlier introducing the idea of being “brutally honest and ruthlessly optimistic.” I knew optimism was half of hope. So I dropped “optimistic” and replaced it with “hopeful,” and voilá Ruthlessly Hopeful. A big thank you to Ann and Val for inspiring it!

I had spent so much time looking and reading through other websites about hope that creating one that contained research, stories and resources to nurture it made sense. I forced myself to answer the questions why, how and for whom, before going any further, because I figured if I couldn’t answer those questions why bother. Answering them reassured me that what I was creating was about moving toward something that might be helpful to others, which was the assurance I needed to spend the $20 it cost to purchase the domain ruthlesslyhopeful.com.

As Ruthlessly Hopeful took shape, I shared it with a few people I trusted and respected. They were people I had worked with, knew me and knew my track record. If they thought it sounded like an exercise in avoidance and or self indulgence, I would reconsider. But none of them did. They all listened carefully, asked me really good questions that helped me flesh it out further and encouraged me to keep going.

I have heard that when you are on the right track things come to you, and that is certainly how I felt as I began to spend more time working on Ruthlessly Hopeful. I quickly found someone to create a logo whose work I admired, had worked with before and was in my price range. I had done this kind of work before and found it quite excruciating. Filling out questionnaires and looking at endless color schemes and images made my head spin. I like to think the universe was rewarding me for past experiences by making this one such a joy.

First Major Obstacle

Once I had the logo, I sent it off to a friend and former colleague who agreed to create the website. I was excited to finalize our agreement, so she could start working on it. I emailed her asking when she could meet. She responded by sharing that she had gotten Covid and her symptoms were lingering. She didn’t want to hold me back, so she encouraged me to find someone else to create it. I told her I totally understood and to take good care of herself. I then took a deep breath and set off to find a new web designer.

I got a handful of referrals for designers and two got back to me. They both said they were interested in working with me and sent proposals. When I looked them over, my jaw dropped. What it would cost to work with either one of them was so far outside my price range. Doubts started to creep in. This was my first major obstacle.

A Way Forward

I was too invested in Ruthlessly Hopeful and had studied too much about hope to simply give up. There had to be a way forward. I bought my domain through Squarespace and had been getting emails about all they had to offer, which included a marketplace for web designers, so I went there to find one. I ended up reaching out to four and then waited. I got this response from Ryann Russ at Iggy + Stella Creative Design Studio:

I'd like to schedule an appointment with you. Let me know when is best for you!

Initially, your email was down as ruthlessyhopeful@gmail.com but the emails kept bouncing back.  I've updated it, so hopefully, this gets to you.

Ryann brought excitement and enthusiasm for Ruthlessly Hopeful, and she was in my price range. She also is whip smart and incredibly kind. Her email was the start of an amazing working relationship that continues today (I consider her my website fairy godmother), and a foreshadowing of things to come. We got to work.

The books I read about hope were full of stories about people who were doing good and remained hopeful in the face of an often difficult reality. I wanted stories like that to be the centerpiece of the site as a way to make the research come alive. I had developed a list of people I wanted to profile and now it was time to start reaching out. I will always be grateful to Stephen Moore, Dr. Michael Osterholm, Dr. Thomas Gable and De’Vonna Pittman, who took a leap of faith and agreed to speak with me before I even had a website. I am grateful to every single person who has agreed to be profiled and share their story. Plenty of people have said no or never responded, so I don’t take the yes’s for granted.

Continuous Lesson In Humility

It was late October, and the site was going live soon. I was working on linking a gmail account I had set up to the website, which was proving difficult. There were a lot of steps involved, but I was following all of them, so why wasn’t it working? I reached out to Google support for help.

Ruthlessly Hopeful is hosted on Squarespace, and I entered that information in order to link the gmail account to it. When I connected with a support person, she reviewed everything and came back with the reason I was having trouble. She explained that I had listed ruthlesslyhopeful.com as my domain name, but according to her, it was actually ruthlessyhopeful.com. I froze. I remember an intense bloom of heat spreading over me and the sound of my heart pounding in my chest. I quickly thanked her and said something about fixing things on my end.

By the time I ended the call, I was in a full blown sweat. I couldn’t believe that I had misspelled the domain name when I purchased it and not noticed. To make matters worse, I had looked at it more times than I could count over the last few months and still not noticed. As all this swirled through my head, I remember thinking, “You have done too much and are so close. Figure it out!” So I went to the Squarespace website to see if RuthlesslyHopeful.com was available. It was, and it cost me another $20, which I happily paid. I then linked the gmail account to the website, which was a lot easier to do this time around. When I told Ryann what happened, she laughed.

Before the site went live, Ryann asked me what my launch plan was. I explained I didn’t have one and she said, “No worries! You can do a soft launch.” Another person asked me what my revenue model was for Ruthlessly Hopeful. Good question! It’s still a work in progress. I continue to get plenty of reminders of all the things I don’t know or need to fix as I work on Ruthlessly Hopeful, and I am thankful that I haven’t let any of it stop me. I have done my best to figure things out and keep going. I like to think of these experiences as part of a continuous lesson in humility and opportunities to feed my love of learning. 

We Need More

Working on Ruthlessly Hopeful has taught me hope is simple but not easy. I am proof that it is possible to become more hopeful otherwise Ruthlessly Hopeful wouldn’t exist. Sometimes the most hopeful thing you can do is to keep putting one foot infront of the other. I am grateful for every single subscriber and appreciate them for being a part of the Ruthlessly Hopeful community. I am amazed that people from all over the world have visited Ruthlessly Hopeful. Hope can exist in difficult spaces, and I am reminded every day that we need more of it in the world.

The little seed that sprouted two years ago is still growing. I hope what I am doing today will help it to grow into something bigger and more beautiful than I can imagine, so I remain hopeful, keep going, and we’ll see what happens.