Looking Ahead to 2023

I'm embracing what I've gained and what I'm proud of, rather than wallowing in what I've lost

This past year was tough. My life is unrecognizable not only from 2019, but from whatever imagined future I had for myself as a corporate executive at Levi’s living in San Francisco.

In February, I quit my job in a spectacular and very public, bridge-burning fashion, all but assuring I would never get another job as a corporate leader again.

I’ve received endless emails from other corporate executives and CEOs saying: “We’re cheering you on from the sidelines!” Still, none would feel comfortable actually working with me in a company. They uphold the corporate woke agenda, for fear of being ousted from the safety of the club. They support me, but don’t want to be me. Or publicly associated with me. My taint might rub off on them.

In their minds, they hope I’m successful in piercing through the the lies, the intolerance for debate and the persistent denial of truth. They pretend to be ok with the unholy alliance between government and corporations even as their concerns surge. They’re hoping someone else will handle it, will challenge, will sacrifice their comfortable existence for one far less comfortable, far less lucrative. They’ll join me once there is some sort of critical mass, and vilification seems less likely.

For now, these quiet questioners consider me brave and necessary, but not to be fully trusted. Who knows what I might do or say? I violated the sacred, unspoken pact among rich executives: pretend to be a social justice warrior and really really care while keeping all the money for yourself and ousting anyone who might get in the way.

I moved out of San Francisco — a city I fell in love with over 30 years ago because it was a home for weirdos and outsiders. When I moved to the Haight-Ashbury after college, it felt like home in a way no place ever had for me. If you’d ever felt strange or like you didn’t fit in, San Francisco was the place for you.

Back in 1992, I was pretty keen on rebelling as I’d spent my entire childhood conforming to the unrealistic ideals of a nationally competitive gymnast/Olympic hopeful. I’d subsisted on fewer than 500 calories a day as a teenager, while working out for 7 or 8 or 10 hours — punishing work endured in silence. I maintained a body weight of under 100 pounds and a body fat percentage in the low single digits.

I was very skinny, very obedient and stoic to the point of self-annihilation. I’d never fit in in high school for these reasons and more. Besides the fact that I attended three different high schools (the result of “gym-hopping”), I looked 12 years old when I was 17, I didn’t eat (let alone drink alcohol), I was terrified of teenaged social interactions, and so I mostly kept to myself.

I was ready to LIVE when I got to the hippie and LGBTQ haven of San Francisco. And boy did I. My cohort consisted of a rag tag group of gay guys having recently come out (something people still did in the 90s), goth chics, artists, all around aspiring creative types, punkers and hippies.

We protested just about everything (we were pro-choice, anti-war and pro-LGBTQ equality), we raved into the wee hours of the morning, held odd jobs to make rent while scoping out happy hours with free hot dogs to stretch our measly budgets.

Then we all got real jobs, real haircuts and real clothes suitable for offices. But San Francisco still felt welcoming to any and all. For a time. Not anymore though. Fall in line with the woke ideology — and the Democratic Party agenda— or risk life-destroying ostracizing and demonization.

The folks I once thought were challengers, critical thinkers, and “good trouble” now appear to just imbibe the headlines from CNN, NPR and The New York Times as if they are gospel; they trust Big Pharma and the government more than those who challenge; and they shun germs and gluten as if their lives depend on it. No thanks.

So now, Denver is my home. We’ll see how that goes. There is a clear libertarian streak here — it’s vehemently pro-choice and pro-inclusion; they love their weed and guns. It’s all legal. The state just legalized magic mushrooms, in fact — the first to do so. And so even though the once “purple” state is now firmly in the “blue” (Governor Jared Polis is credited with having driven this transformation), I find there to be more of a live and let live attitude than back in San Francisco.

My friend group is also unrecognizable, cobbled together from Twitter and real life — it consists mostly of “anti-lockdowners” who saw and fought the infringement on our basic civil liberties in 2020 and 2021.

My “unicorn sisters” who came to support me after I quit my job

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Me and my husband with Justin Hart and Jenny Erikson in San Diego earlier this year

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Me and Angela, a new friend made in the last few years

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I’ve not much interest in anyone who accepted lockdowns and school closures, vaccine mandates and the shunning of the unvaccinated. Or didn’t accept it, but stayed quiet in the face of it. These conformists agreed to too much harm to others while cocooned in the safety of their privileged existences. They chose the safety of the group over challenging lies and the curtailment of basic civil rights. They chose Netflix and UberEats over standing up for kids. They chose quietly sending their children to in-person private school while ignoring the fact that low-income children were denied the same opportunity.

And, in far too many instances, these stay home to stay safe touting rule-followers, vilified those who chose differently. These conformists were keen to distance themselves from those of us who were deemed toxic dissenters for daring to challenge — even if they knew us, knew the arc of our lives, what was in our hearts and minds. And so the vilifiers adopted the trendy name-calling and ad hominem attacks — racist, anti-trans, fat-phobe, Trumper — and directed them at former friends, like me.

I also lost my larger “tribe” — my political party, my cohort of self-identified “progressives.” I learned that they were all too willing to trespass on their own stated values of inclusion, equality of opportunity, support for vulnerable communities, care for children. They left me, I didn’t leave them. I chose principles over Party.

At 53, I knew in my head that I was not the sum of these things — my city, my job, my friends, my political party. But they grounded me and placed me comfortably in a tribe. They gave me a sense of place and belonging, kept me from floating away. I thought. 

2022 was also the year I was smeared as a grifter for giving up my career and passing up $1 million in severance to keep my voice. 

Of course, the real grift would have been to take the money and stay quiet about why I lost my job — as well as a future as the CEO of Levi’s. Allowing myself to be censored and silenced would have been a trespass of my own values too big to live with.

And so, this past year was also the year I learned that my place, my real sense of belonging, resides with my values. Kids, free speech, truth. That’s what I care about. That’s where I live. And I learned, I did not float away without the other stuff. In fact, I am more me than ever.

I hope that my new surroundings feel less new and more familiar in the coming year. I hope that maybe some of the folks writing to me, decide to speak up a bit — to reject lies, to live honestly. I hope to write more, read more, and continue to inhabit the more me version of my new life.

Despite the chaos of my year, I got a lot done that I am proud of. I’m choosing to look at what I’ve gained, versus what I’ve lost. I’m committed to building on these gains in 2023. Here’s my year in numbers:

Quit one job

Read 15 books

Walked 14,000 steps a day/6 miles — or 5.1M steps in the year/2,190 miles

Wrote and published one book, Levi’s Unbuttoned

Wrote editorials for The Free Press, Spectator World, Brownstone Institute and The New York Sun

Started this obligatory Substack

Filmed the better part of a documentary on the impact of prolonged school closures on a generation of children

Started a second career

What about you? What did you do this year that you’re proud of? What do you hope to build upon in 2023? I want to know!

Here’s to the challengers, the question-askers, the dissenters, those brave enough to use their voices — no matter the consequences. We need you. Keep going!

And scene…