Celebrating her 60th on Cinco de Mayo in Nashville!

A Tribute to My Mama

If you’ve followed along with the Mylo Mag or know my mom at all, you know that she has this incredible brilliance with her words. When she goes to write, it's like magic just flows out of her fingertips. It has to be at the right time and she has to be in the right frame of mind (which is why she sometimes misses my deadlines ;)). But when she is, watch out. You’re about to be blown away.

For her 60th birthday, we scheduled a Mylo Mag to feature her and all the things she loves; however, it seemed a bit odd for her to write about herself. She's never been one to brag about herself and her accomplishments (I mean what decent person does really), so as we did our planning, I said that I would write the blog for this edition.

While I believe I’m a decent writer, it’s not as much of my thing. I don't hate it, but I don’t love it like she does. I’m more direct and to the point, while she’s free-spirited, creative, and inspirational. Even with the most basic of conversations, she finds a way to turn words into pure magic and I simply don’t possess that skill. For example, below was our text exchange on Mother’s Day morning:

Me: Happy Mother’s Day mamaaaaa! Thanks for being the absolute best example for me as I raise my boys!

Her response: Thank you, my love. I am truly blessed to have you as my daughter and to watch you raise those beautiful boys. I see the spirit of you inside their eyes and that is very special. You are an incredible mama and a wonderful daughter. I feel like I fell out of the lucky tree and hit every lucky branch on the way down and fell into a pile of cash and sour patch kids.

Like seriously? How does her brain do that? Isn’t it incredible? And believe me, she’s been like this for as long as I can remember. Far before the internet and ChatGPT. There’s always been this unbelievable mix of sincerity, love, and power in her words. It's something I try to never take for granted.

All of this being said, here I am writing the blog in her honor. It’s a week late, because we were in Nashville to celebrate her actual birthday on May 5th, and as my Aunt Cherie (whose birthday happens to be today - May 14th) would say - it is what it is.

Here's to sixty years of love, laughter, creativity, grit, and pure awesomeness,

Cola

The Early Years.

That 90’s hairdo has got to be my absolute favorite. Like everything, though, she still pulls it off!

As I continue to get older and build a family of my own, I’m filled with more and more gratitude every day for what it takes to be a mom. You know those videos you watch or memes you see about doing a full time job (literally 24/7) for absolutely no pay - yep, that's the life of a mom. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but I definitely have more respect and appreciation now than ever before.

There’s so many ups and downs of motherhood, yet my mom always did whatever she could to create a beautiful, fun life for my brother and myself. It could be the most basic of things like letting us use fancy glasses for juice, not for any sort of celebration, but “just because”. Or making us whatever themed birthday cake we wanted. And that was long before there was the internet or Pinterest to google how to do it! Our house was always the house with the best snacks. My friends loved raiding the pantry whenever they came over. That was the environment my mom seamlessly created for us all the time.

Grandma Sally, Cherie, Angie, Papa Norman with Jackie & I on our baptism day. Again - the style is just such perfection.

Regardless of the day or the occasion, my mom had a way of always making things special. Alongside that came learning a level of respect and discipline regardless of where you were at or who you were around. Once when I was young, I was playing in a sandbox. Some kids around me started throwing sand at each other, while I quietly played by myself. She came over, scolded me to stop throwing sand, and made me get out of the sandbox. I was obviously confused, because I hadn’t been throwing sand. But after we walked away, those kids stopped throwing the sand. She's told that story for years and I always give her a hard time. She said “well I couldn’t yell at other people’s kids for throwing the sand and I was sick of them doing it!”

As a kid you obviously don’t realize the many lessons your parents are teaching you, but it’s become more and more clear as I continue to get older.

Tough Love

As I got into high school, it was necessary for more of those lessons to be taught. Whenever we reminisce about some of these stories, of course we have to laugh. But at the time, I promise you, there was no laughing going on.

My mom was the high school volleyball coach at Logan View starting in the 90s. I absolutely loved growing up in the gym and getting to watch her coach. When I was a freshman in high school, I was beyond excited when it was finally my turn to step on the court and play for her! For one of the summer team camps at UNK (coincidentally where I would end up going to college), I had to set since the senior setter couldn't come. My mom said something from the bench to me after a play (that I’m 100% positive was a normal, coach comment, although I must not have thought it at the time). My response was an eye roll and deep breath. You better believe she didn’t skip a beat to pull my ass out of that game. The girl she subbed in for me wasn’t even a setter! It didn’t matter - it was time for me to learn that on the court, I was not her daughter, I was her setter and I needed to respect that role.

I would go on to learn that being the coach’s kid was not an advantage, like many people thought. It came with extra challenges and higher expectations. Fortunately for me, I started to embrace it and I actually loved it (most of the time - let’s be honest, I was still a teenager…). I truly believe her high expectations started to shape me into who I am today.

My mom was ahead of the game when it came to focusing on the mental part of sports. She encouraged every kid she coached to work on their mental toughness. She got teams that were very average to believe they were the best in the state! That mindset and belief landed our team in the state final my freshman year. We lost to Columbus Scotus, but we were still state Runner-Ups, we ended the season 25-3, and it was the best finish in school history. One week later - she was fired.

Grit & Grace

Watching my mom go through being fired is etched deeply in my memory. It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch something she gave so much to (for almost no pay) be ripped away from her because 2 parents were mad about playing time. She poured her heart and soul into that community and that program for many years. So many of us were in complete shock that the administration could and would do something like this after everything she had done for her alma mater.

Somehow, that heartache and dark time taught our family so many lessons. By the end of the school year, my parents decided to move us down to Elkhorn, where I would attend Elkhorn High School and try to make the high school volleyball team. We were all nervous and scared for such a big change, but my mom knew we couldn’t stay where we were at. I made the team and come November, I had a gold medal around my neck after winning the state championship.

I remember for years, still wanting to flip off the Logan View administration for what they did to my mom and our family. But now, whenever I think of those people, I simply smile and say thank you. While that change in our lives was unexpected, hard, and devastating, it led us right to where we needed to be. Without that, I wouldn’t have ever met some of my closest friends in my life, my brother wouldn’t have ended up going to Fremont Bergan and meeting his friends. My mom wouldn’t have gained the friendships she still has to this day and I’m pretty positive that we wouldn’t have ever launched a business together. Talk about the power of change.

New Chapters

Always sure to have a good time when my mom is around - I promise.

As time went on, my mom continued to do it all. Traveling to my college volleyball games all over the country, cheering on Trevor on the golf course (sometimes a little too loudly - ok it was only once, but we still give her crap for gasping loudly after he missed a putt - he shot quite the look her way), and running a promotional products business. Her never-ending support for both Trevor and myself, along with other family, athletes, and friends, is something I know people will always appreciate and remember her for.

When I moved back to Omaha in the summer of 2013, I started working for my parents and learning the ins and outs of the business. In doing so, I also started to see more depth into my parent’s marriage and the darker side of what that looked like a lot of the time. The depth of that story is for a different type of blog, but I do feel it’s important to mention, as every person is facing their own battles, their own challenges and I never want anyone to feel that they’re alone.

In May of 2017, my mom made the brave decision to make a personal and professional split from my dad. I left, too, as I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had a vision of taking over the family business, carrying on a legacy, and helping build something amazing, but I came to realize that vision was a fantasy we were never going to reach. Making this decision brought me right back to high school and my mom being fired. While it was my choice, it still felt out of my control. But we were reminded immediately that as hard as this was about to be, something good was going to come out of it. We had faith and trust in the process.

A few days after leaving, my mom and I looked at each other with glasses of wine in our hands and tears rolling down our faces — “what the hell do we do now?!” My mom helped build that other business from the beginning; I had helped us double sales in the time I was there - hell what’s the worst that could happen in starting over? We decided to do it and Soul & Swag was born. Our mindset going in was… if we fail, we fail. We’ll go back to scrolling jobs online and find one of those.

Some of our family at a Soul Swagchella event celebrating 5 years of Soul & Swag!

Mylo Magic

From our Mylo Launch photo shoot. We have zero fun in our jobs - can’t ya tell?

We launched in June of 2017 and, as my mom likes to say, it’s as if we got into a car and stole it! We were off to build and grow in a whole new way. Starting over was scary, but we had to do it. We added my Aunt Tammie to our team that fall and my cousin, Jackie, in April of 2018. It’s funny, because I had so many people in those early years make comments about how hard running a family business is. And my response was always “running a business in general is hard. As far as a family business, it just has to be the right family”.

Building a business with my mom has been equal parts wild and wonderful. We balance each other in the most beautiful of ways and try to hold each other accountable in a positive way (after all, our Gallup team strength is positivity).

In 2023, when my mom first mentioned the idea of a rebrand to me, I don’t think I said anything. I just gave her the most confused/disgusted look (if you know me at all, you know I am absolutely awful at hiding my facial expressions). We spent 6 years building the Soul & Swag brand. Why would we rebrand? Plus - it sounded like WAY too much work.

A few weeks later, and after some disrespectful comments from a former client, she brought it up again and I was ready. That’s another thing about my mom - she has an impeccable way of almost predicting the future, but she allows others to get there in their own time. (Seriously - she was talking about the idea of an iPhone long before it ever launched. I keep telling her eventually this skill will make her millions! ;))

Just under eight months later, we officially rebranded from Soul & Swag to Mylo Brand Studio, which stands for MerchYouLOve. It was challenging and confusing and stressful, but we did it and never looked back. Once again, we were reminded that change can be hard, but it also can be the best thing you ever do.

Change has led us to building and growing a business we love with our OG crew of four, alongside Ron, Alpha, Chris, and Maddie. We’re reminded almost daily of how running a business is a crazy blend of beautiful and hard. I couldn’t image doing it with anyone but my mom.

Sixty Years Young

So here we are. Sixty years of brilliance, resilience, creativity, and heart. She’s built businesses, raised kids, coached teams, reinvented herself, and now helps lead a company that feels as full of heart as she is. She’s a wife to her husband, Tim, she’s a GG to Reece & Rhett, - she loves golfing, camping, happy hour, travel, and spending time with the people she loves the most.

She’s proof that you can always begin again; that life doesn’t stop—it reinvents; that leading with love, showing up for others, and believing in yourself (even when it’s scary) is what truly leaves a legacy.

Happy 60th, Mom. If I turn out to be even half the woman you are, I’ll be doing just fine. I love you to the moon and back and all the way to Taco Bell. Cheers to many more.

Xoxo,