Chats with Entrepreneur Angel Anderson

I met Angel a few months ago at an event designed to help heal broken hearts. We were both there to flaunt our companies and early on, she showed me her amazing app for amazing nail wraps (seriously, it’s genius…any photo you want can be turned into nail art. Instantly). We got chatting about all sorts and instantly her energy, warmth and entrepreneurial spirit leaped out at me. Angel’s got determination and courage like you wouldnt believe. Her story is incredible and gives a whole new meaning to inner strength. Without further ado…. here’s our interview with Angel.

I’m the CEO of a startup called NailSnaps that lets you turn your photos into nail art. We’re a new company which means I work my ass off and wear almost every hat imaginable. I do it because want to empower women to easily express their creativity by making stunning nail designs featuring anything they see – favorite skylines, holiday vistas, pets, pretty patterns – the whole world can be your manicure.

The best gifts for me aren’t things – they are experiences. My mom gave the the gift of dauntlessness. My mom is the most stubbornly determined person you can imagine. From her I learned to never give up or be afraid to try something.

What’s the worst gift you ever got? Really gross, tacky lingerie. It was from an ex-boyfriend who wanted to get back together. It made me want to forget that I’d ever even been with him in the first place.

Taste the rainbow! People always say dating is a numbers game and that’s true – the more people you date the more likely you are to find someone who really clicks with you, but I would add that you can make it more fun by dating lots of ~diverse people. Don’t just kiss a lot of frogs, make out with the squirrels, and fish, and all the other interesting types out there. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many people who you think are not your type turn out to be pretty awesome.  

Going for a walk outside. Fresh air makes a huge difference. Being out in nature is always a good reset but even if I’m in the middle of the city, just walking outside with people passing helps me start imagining their backstory and not ruminating on whatever passing bullshit I might going though.

When my first serious college boyfriend dumped me, I thought I’d never get over him. He was this gorgeous, golden god with a body straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch. Eventually I let go. Years later, I ran into him at a friend’s wedding and all the magic was gone. His once incredible body was replaced by the paunchy disappointment of a serious drinking problem. I realized I’d been caught up in a fantasy of who I wanted him to be rather that who he actually was.

My fiancé and I were accepting RSVP’s to our destination wedding when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. We postponed the wedding indefinitely. He was young, fit, and otherwise healthy, so of course, he fought it with the same positive spirit and goofy sense of humor he brought to everything but after a long, challenging year of radical surgeries, chemo, and more medical intervention than any person is meant to endure, he died. We had gotten married just 10 days before, in a cheap wedding chapel on a whim because we had so much cake left over from the massive party his parents and I had thrown him for his 34th birthday. We all knew it would be his last. And we knew that if we wanted to make good on our plans to be married, time was running out. Instead of honeymooning in Europe, I attended his funeral in Griffith Park. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. I remember how incongruent the world around me was to the searing black pain I felt. He was my person and now he was gone. My life felt over and I wished that it had been me who died.

The next several months were empty. Finally, a good friend suggested that I spend what remained of our honeymoon money to travel with her in Europe instead. She was going through a divorce and we decided it would be good for both of us to have a change of scenery. Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Greece. It was an epic trip but Scotland was a must because we’d both read Outlander, a historical fiction novel set to the backdrop of the last Scottish uprising so we decided to visit Scotland to see the historical battlefields and castles in the book. It was there one evening after a ghost tour through the city of Edinburgh that I met the tall, handsome Scotsman who understood and accepted my active grief while miraculously pulling me back to the land of the living. He was funny, charming, and despite different cultures, upbringings, and a 10 year age gap,  we somehow we liked all the same music, authors, and cultural references that bind people. He held me when I cried and didn’t tell me “everything happens for a reason” or any of the other cliches well-meaning loved ones had heaped upon me. He helped me learn to laugh again. We fell in love and I’m happy to say that we’ve been together ever since. Maybe things do happen for a reason. Or maybe I just got lucky. I was lucky to have two amazing men in my life.

I often wonder, what would have happened if my first husband had never been sick? If he’d lived, what would have happened if I’d ever crossed paths with the man who is my husband now? What would have happened to my current husband if I’d never read that book and traveled to all the Scottish cities it described? We live planing the future and forgetting just how fragile and fleeting our lives truly are. Or we live in fear of things we can’t control. Life and death just happen. To continue living is to embrace impermanence and cherish whatever you have. Sometimes the thing that you can’t imagine being able to endure is exactly what you must endure. Keep breathing and if you’re really, really lucky sometimes things more wonderful than you dared to image are just around the corner from the pain you have to go through.