Entrepreneurship is trending these days. In our post-Zuckerberg, Unicorn-abundant world, starting one’s own business to pursue our passions feels de rigueur.

In this world, authenticity drives (and sometimes trumps) aspiration, personal and business branding aren’t mutually exclusive, and community comes before corporate culture.

And the umbrella under which all these truths can exist? Entrepreneurship.

People perceive entrepreneurship as liberation from a constrictive 9-to-5 or a way to express one’s creative self. As a freshly minted entrepreneur, I agree that entrepreneurship can, in fact, serve this purpose.

For me and my business partner Rosario Chozas, our entrepreneurial umbrella is Bammies, a fashion brand that elevates the style of comfort in order to: 1) Minimize decision fatigue for women who need to quickly and aptly dress for various appointments in one day; and 2) Help women use fashion to feel comfortable in their own skin.

Hands down, this is my dream job.

But, like anything, there’s a reality behind the entrepreneurial dream. We learn what we know and think we understand of the entrepreneurial experience via the stories we absorb from various channels, both on and offline- social media, word of mouth, and more.

A brand story (and by extension, the story of its founders or team) exists across all platforms: in the media, on its website, mobile ads, and more. Much like your friend’s FOMO-inducing, highly filtered Instagram feed, a brand story is controlled.

Usually most of what you see, even the #BTS stuff, are the highs. Or even the mediums that we rework to look like highs. You know, the wins, the successes, the media applause, public acceptance, and the like. (The media also like to make spectacle of a brand’s lows, too, if they’re available.)

After all, drama sells, positive public opinion is paramount, and by motivating viewers to live in comparison, a brand creates conversions.

And so we absorb stories about entrepreneurs that go a little something like this:

• They’re doing something they love

• They don’t have to go to an office

• They don’t have set timelines

• They can wear whatever they want

• They don’t have to deal with a bad boss or nasty coworkers

• They are important

• Freedom

• Success

• Easy

• Money. Lots of it. (Or at least more than you’re currently making.)

Don’t get me wrong, many of these are part of the actual experience and can be pretty freaking awesome.

But let’s get real.

In entrepreneurship, the “office” becomes a coffee shop, co-working space, or expertly appointed apartment. Timelines still very much exist. You either have to set them yourselves (hello, self-discipline!), or they are dictated by your clients, customers or partners. And you’ve traded in one responsibility for another (albeit one that’s more aligned with who you truly are, but it’s still responsibility).

Obviously we enjoy the “wear whatever you want” aspect, but we’ve also deliberately created a clothing line that allows women to dress stylishly, comfortably, and easily for professional appointments and beyond, whether you work from home or not.

Because we’re in the business of helping women develop a personal style that makes them feel comfortable, we try to be as transparent about our process as possible. Here are parts of our story that can’t always be captured on our Instagram feed:

• Caring so hard about your business, customer or passion that nothing else matters.

• The consistent internal conflict between the pressure to succeed as defined by others versus succeeding on your own terms.

• Having to manage triage with no guidelines. Getting a business off the ground is much like running a popular ER in downtown Chicago on Thanksgiving. When you’re a first-year. And there’s no Chief Resident: You’ve got limited resources. You don’t know what problem to address first. You feel as if someone else will know how to handle the situation better than you, but they’re not in the trenches with you. Sure, you can have a mentor or advisor to help guide, you but their experience will never be EXACTLY the same situation as what you’re going through. What you have to navigate is never the same day in and day out. So you throw on the gloves and dive in with the solid knowledge that you have and figure it out as you go, much like those who came before you did.

• Self doubt.

• A continuous cycle of expansion and contraction, on both personal and business levels. (And that ish is exhausting.)

• Pivoting. Pivoting. Pivoting.

• Trust. Trust that it’s all going to work out.

About Julia Ford-Carther

Julia Ford-Carther, along with Rosario Chozas, co-founded Bammies [business + jammies], a contemporary women’s fashion brand dedicated to elevating comfort and empowering women through style. Prior to Bammies, Julia spent 10 years in media, utilizing her editorial experience and Communications degree from Stanford University to create lifestyle content for brands and publications such as Allure magazine, Ocean Drive magazine, Huffington Post, Lacoste, NBC, Shop Spring, W Hotels, and more. She has been featured in various outlets including Ebony magazine, Mashable, Racked Miami, Fast Company’s CoDesign, Entrepreneur, and Fox & Friends. For more from Bammies, visit www.bammies.life or follow @bammies.life on Instagram.

Growing up, I always had these dark spots all over my body.

My skin was sensitive to anything. I would always pick at my scabs on my legs and arms or even scratch my mosquito bites. At one point I got chicken pox and my skin got worse than ever before. More dark spots started appearing on my skin and my skin looked horrifying.

People always asked me as a little kid why or how I had some many dark spots on my skin. I would always tell them the same thing, “Oh it’s just mosquito bites.” All of their responses would be the same, “Those are a lot of mosquito bites.”

Everywhere I went, people constantly asked me about my dark marks. After some time I started to feel embarrassed, ashamed, and ugly because of the dark marks that appeared. I stopped wearing shorts at a young age and wore more pants and capris.

I thought that would fix the problem with everyone asking me where I got all of my dark spots from.

In elementary school, many of my classmates made fun of me for my dark spots. They called me a Dalmatian like it was a fun nickname. I never told my parents or siblings about the remarks because I didn’t think they could do anything about it.

One day in middle school, I got the courage to wear shorts, but that was a big mistake. The questions started coming from my teachers and classmates about my dark spots. They would ask “Does it hurt?” “How did you get so many?” and “What caused that to happen?” I just started to feel embarrassed again and I finally went to my mom because I was tired of the people always asking me about my skin.

I went to a dermatologist and he gave me a cream to help fade away my dark spots. After some time I could tell that the dark spots were starting to fade, but the cream wasn’t too healthy for someone my age.

I stopped using the cream and didn’t have anything else to use. I officially lost all confidence in myself. I didn’t think I was pretty because I didn’t have skin like the rest of my classmates.

When I started running track in 6th grade, I still paid attention to my legs, but my main focus was to be the best on the team.

I would wear long pants all the time because I didn’t want my teammates or the people in the stands to see my legs.

Eventually I couldn’t wear the long sleeve stuff anymore because it started to get hot outside. During one track meet, a lot of my teammates asked me about my skin and I gave them the same response I gave everyone. “It’s just mosquito bites.”

I hated having people come up to me about my skin, but at that meet I was so angry that I used all my anger in my race and won. After a while, I started to just put everything I had into track.

I was still self-conscious about my arms and legs, but I was more focused on winning. I started to progress over the years in track in middle school and started to fall in love with the sport.

Track was my escape from everything. It was my main focus.

As I got in high school, my self-esteem went even lower. Girls were showing off their pretty skin and all I would wear was capris so no one could see my skin. I still did not want people to look at my skin because it was ugly in my opinion.

I would wear short sleeve shirts and people still asked me about my skin. I didn’t think I would ever have beautiful skin like everyone else because I didn’t see any changes in my skin.

Even during track season I still wore long clothing as long as possible to hide my skin. Once it got hot, I always had to expose my skin, but this time not many people asked about my skin. I started to feel comfortable at track practices during my first year of high school.

I wore short sleeve clothing once my freshman year and I thought I made the biggest mistake because so many people looked at my skin with disgust and I just didn’t even want to be at school. After a while I just kept hiding my skin, but during track season I escaped from all of my problems.

Finally, during my junior year, I was known as the “track star” at my school. This boosted my confidence a lot. Many people did not pay attention to my skin, they paid attention to my talent.

I started to wear more short sleeve clothing.

Even though I still got questions about my skin, I didn’t care anymore. Nothing could take away how much recognition I was getting for track. My passion for the sport was steadily growing and I couldn’t be any happier.

I lacked confidence until my senior year. I was still known for track, but I started to drift away from longer clothing to shorter clothing. I was able to start using a product that would help my skin and I was actually seeing a change. Some of my dark spots were clearing up and training for track was going very well.

One person helped me a lot with building my confidence. He never questioned me about my skin and always made me feel beautiful no matter what. He never focused on my skin, but the person that I was. I am truly thankful that God has allowed me to meet such a wonderful person because he has helped me a lot with building my confidence.

I am a sophomore in college now and my confidence has only increased. I have been trying a lot of new stuff to help my skin and I am so happy that the products are working. I am going to my track meets feeling confident and the only thing on my mind is my race, not my skin or what anyone has to say about it.

If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self then I would. I would tell her to not lose her self-esteem about her skin, but to build confidence from it. Your skin is what makes you different from others.

No one looks alike, so why should you want to look like anyone else?

Flaws and all you’re still beautiful. Your imperfections make you the person that you are today.

God has created us all different for a reason and to look like someone else wasn’t his plan for me. My flaws have helped me realize a lot about myself. I’ve grown tremendously as a person and I am happy for my flaws.

I have embraced my flaws, because no matter what, in God’s eyes I am still beautiful.