Success left me flying high — and then I’d crash

Chayale Kaufman is the cofounder and owner of The Jewish Content Network and Consult Write Media, where she and her team create and execute large-scale marketing campaigns for businesses and organizations. She has 18 years of experience in the industry and thousands of campaigns behind her. As a mother of seven kein ayin hara, Chayale has built her life around impacting with meaning.

Chayale’s Story

Memories of the restaurant I was sitting in stand out in my mind in perfect detail. I distinctly remember the dim lights and the wood-paneled walls opposite our table. I was sitting with my husband — we’d gone out for the night. That’s not an unusual occurrence, but the circumstances around it were.

That night, I had a realization that changed my business, my life, myself. It was as if a lightbulb had switched on in my head and suddenly, I understood the cause of the inner distress I’d been feeling for years.

But first, some context. I founded two companies over the last eight years, The Jewish Content Network and ConsultWrite Media. I love what I do, but at some point, the work made me really stressed. I put my entire heart and soul into my work, staying up late, working overtime — whatever is needed to give the campaign the best possible chance of being a resounding success.

But I’d become so bound up in the campaigns that when one of them inevitably failed, I felt like a failure. I doubted my self-worth. And when a campaign succeeded, I felt like a smashing success, I was flying high… only to be left with a low feeling of uselessness the morning after the campaign was over. Suddenly, I was no longer in the picture, and the project that had taken up my entire headspace for months was old news. That “next-morning low,” as I termed it, accompanied me like a heavy cloud wherever I went.

One particular campaign stands out in my mind. It had been a big project with some stressful periods, but I’d gone all out — and then some — and it was a resounding success. For weeks, I dreamed about this campaign. The morning after, the “low” hit. I felt down and empty.