I was constantly on my phone for nearly a decade. I can only imagine my screentime back then. The funny thing is that I thought I was connected and informed, but really I was disconnected and misinformed.

My kids were eight and six, and I was losing them. I had to make a change. So, on March 24th, 2017, I came home from work, turned off my phone and threw it across the counter. Instantly, I felt alive, like I'd emerged, kinda symbolically, from the cloud[s]. It was such a powerful experience that I was deeply compelled to try to inspire other people, who, like me, were addicted to their phone, to do the same, to feel the same.

The very next day, driving to a woodworking project in my box-truck, my mind's eye became wide open, as I was imagining names for a brand that I was driven to create. Disconnect. No. Unplug. No. Then I saw it, log off, but spelled lAUg AUf, with a power button between the two words. But it wasn't just words in empty space. I saw someone wearing them on a shirt, with a stranger asking, "What is that? A foreign brand?" That was the genesis. Before I knew it meant anything, the name was chosen to start a conversation. To connect people to one another.

The AU was also a reference to the element symbol for gold: the golden rule, the golden mean, the golden ratio. But I didn't know if the words themselves meant anything other than the homophone. So I googled them, hoping they translated to something meaningful in English. They did!

Laug, Estonian, "reconnect with your spouse." Auf, a colloquial English term, "have a go at something new." It seemed amazing; it was exactly 'my' experience. Super-excited, I told my friend Steve, who happens to speak German. Steve is one of the most positive people I know and a unique mix of both creativity and business savvy. Immediately, he asked, "Who's your target market?"

"Teenagers, twenty-somethings," I said confidently.

"They won't care about reconnecting with a spouse," he said critically. "That's your story," he continued, thoughtfully.

Then his face lit up. "Ya know, auf means open in German. Can you imagine if laug meant eyes?"

Instantly, his clever thought ignited my whole body, like Steve had pushed the power button in my mind.

Almost like a reflex, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and typed "LAUG meaning in foreign languages," feeling that it really might.

It did.

In Estonian, laug means eyelids; easily trimmed to eyes.

Steve called it: "Eyes Open."

The message was hiding inside a name I'd scribbled on an envelope. I didn't invent it. We discovered it. And everything deep about this brand continues to present itself the same way; not from me alone, but through people, through conversations. The brand is the proof that we're all connected.

When it was time to put graphics on garments, we needed names. I looked at this first one and knew. It's the "OG": O.E.G.G.Y.

Orion Edward, Gloria Grace, and our last name, Yberg. The Y is also "why?"

Because my kids are the reason I started this, and the reason we keep building it. What started because of my kids is now for all kids, of every age.