A little bit of my story
I always wanted a creative life. After earning my BA in Psychology, I surprised everyone who knew me and went to study haircutting at Vidal Sassoon Academy. Let me tell you: cutting someone’s hair when you don’t know what you’re doing is terrifying. It’s also the only way to eventually become someone who does know what they’re doing. I went on to train haircutting students in San Francisco and Los Angeles through the process of doing despite not-yet-knowing. As it turned out, this delicious paradox would follow, challenge, and inspire me the rest of my life.
Six years in, I knew deep down I needed to make a change. The only problem was: I had no idea what. Perhaps you’ve been here? I was good at my job, in the field of my choosing; I had a waiting list of clients. But I knew I wasn’t growing anymore. I didn’t know what the next step was, or where to begin finding it. This was the first time in my life I hadn’t known what to do next. It was debilitating. I wanted so badly to be able to just make a choice: the one action I knew for certain would relieve the discomfort.
One day, a voice whispered, faintly, “Just start where you are. Do the very next thing you can think of. It might not be right, but it will get you somewhere new, and from there you might see a new option.” This was my wiser self, coming to pay me a visit. So I started talking to anyone that would talk to me, having career conversations with clients, friends, strangers. Eventually, I made a connection, a crucial one that would get me to the next step in my path: my first job in tech marketing.
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“Wherever you are, that is the entry point.”
Kabir, 15th century poet
Ten years later, I lead a team of brilliant and creative writers inside a fast-growing global technology company.
And most days, I relish stepping into the delightful unknown.
Of course, I’m not done yet.
