Left the corporate world back in 2001.  Right before the tech bust.  Economy was still pretty good.  Traveled the country with three kids taking a year off between leaving a decade in the rat race to the vision of finding our version of Family business in America.  Going back to the old days one could say.  The quest was fast paced and highly creative.  Many late nights sitting up with brainstorming sessions that would knock your socks off.  Tens of thousands of miles traveled, 43 states visited, and too many truck stops to count.  With views out of the RV windows that gloried the land that we slept on and the symbol of ultimate freedom and opportunity ~ America.  Then 9/11 hit.

BareNakedFamily found themselves at Ground Zero six weeks later loosely helping people through prayer,  visits to police and fire stations with our Dad who at the time was  a Police Chaplain, and even found ourselves drinking with the locals in a neighborhood bar deep in the Jersey City Industrial Park.  A bar that was located feet away from the storage room that housed the explosives used in the first World Trade Center bombing back in the 90’s.  And most of these people in the bar out of work from the collapse of the economy.  Blue collar workers, Real American heroes who were doing work most of us couldn’t or wouldn’t.  Unemployed.  Because of fear.  This time marks the change in our history.  And so begins the story of BareNakedFamily and their quest to get a piece of the American Pie.  With integrity, dignity, and justice for all…of us.

Lots of years we worked on that.  Tried our hands at lots of things.  Some successful, some not.  And the friends.  Oh, the friends we met.  The Families out there we met hungry for change, time together, and purpose in their life.  Just like us.  We used ourselves to connect, inspire, and empower them to take back their lives.  Building a nationwide web of real American Families with amazing stories and beauty.  Our webs through the years on the road and BareNaked projects evolved into the backbone of our current business BareNakedWebs.com ~ web design, publicity, and social networking.  A business that was really special to us because it was a clear culmination of years being BareNakedFamily publishing the stories from the road, from the people, from the adventures of finding small business and working for ourselves through blogging, social media, and personal connections with our audience.  Being accessible for the folks out there became a wonderful part of our life and a strange one at that.  But we’re not really conventional and love being friends with lots of strangers so we embraced living our life publicly and openly always answering days worth of emails and questions all this time later.

The last few months we’ve been talking about having a hard time rounding up work in this economy. In the months previous, our business was thriving even as clients were tightening their belts due to the hard hit restaurant industry.  Had the right amount of clients.  Making the numbers we set out to make.  Moved across the country.  Became inspired again.  Then watched the economy sink again.  In a much bigger metropolitan area.  Where people are out of work in record numbers.  Our marketing that was bringing us new accounts, literally dried up over a few weeks right after Christmas.  Almost going over minutes to no phone calls.  Being freelancers, we adjusted our prices, nothing.  Dropped the price of our websites, our bread and butter that we usually charge anywhere from $300-$1000K to a record low of $150.  Nothing. Outstanding invoices to the tunes of thousands due for work done, stood up.  Scrambling to find any sort of short term cash flow, we started to send out resume submissions on Craigslist all day for weeks.  Have not received one call.  Bank account dwindling.  Landlord works with us on rent.  He’s a great guy/friend.  Says ‘hey send me your resume.  I have lots of folks in the the tech world.  Let me give it out to them’.  Then landlord calls and says that he’ll be sending our resume out along with his, he just got laid off a professional IT career.  Creativity at an all time high.  Heart full of gratitude.  Beer still in the fridge.  Kids cool about it.  Decided to go to an open interview at a restaurant for a managerial position since most of our web, social media, and publicity skills come from working with some of the biggest venues in back in Austin.  We found ourselves interviewing with about four hundred other people all looking for some work themselves.  As Greg was in an interview, Sunny and I were waiting and overheard a guy say that he had been in the restaurant business for twenty years and he’s never seen this many people for an interview.  The restaurant was so overwhelmed with the response that they couldn’t even focus and the interview sucked proving that we have to stick with finding our own way out of this like we always do.

We found ourselves feeling grateful.  Grateful for who we and what we have done.  Grateful that we are smart.  And honest.  And hardworking.  Grateful to be BareNakedFamily.  We found ourselves thinking about all those other people who are in the same boat.  Thinking about the woman that we stood in line with who told us about her husband who was helping expand the Panama Canal and would be gone for two years leaving her in America with the kids.  She was applying to be the baker.  Greg and I looking at each other I’m sure thinking the same thing.  It’s time to get BareNaked and make some shit happen.

We smile, say goodbye, and head home where we discover over a couple of beers, photography stills, and humble pie that we have what it takes to take our lives back once again.  And by tomorrow you will get your fair share of what it’s like to live publicly and honestly as BareNakedFamily.

Because if those guys back in that Jersey City bar taught us anything…it’s that we’re all in this together and we take care of one another.  And we’re badass American folks…