My Decade Birthmasukah

I was born on December 23, 1989. I essentially have a decade birthmasukah. I share my birthday week with a lot of holidays like Christmas Eve, Christmas, Hanukkah, and we could argue New Year and New Decades as well. My whole life, I railed against sharing the one day I get to make everything about me with everyone. As I’ve gotten older, I have softened to only requiring my birthday gifts to be wrapped in non-holiday paper to keep some semblance of my day intact. Honestly, who wants to decline a Santa-shaped sugar cookie anyway?

I’ve been making the joke that at 30, I am now finally the age I have felt for the past six years. At 24, I started my own marketing business. The best part about starting a business when you are only 24 is when people tell you that you can’t do something a little bit of rebellious teenage you shows up. I had endless energy, drive, and vision for my company. The realities relatively unburdened me of what it means to start a business as a woman in one of the most expensive cities in the country in an extremely male-dominated field. But I made it. I pivoted without hesitation, from full-service marketing to content only, to creative companies only and eventually offering coaching, without much fear. In 2018, I transitioned to Head of Marketing for one of my former clients, Mastin Labs, where I still work today. My career is something I am incredibly proud of.

From 20 to 29, I grew and took shape in a new way. I stepped into who I am. I accepted that I am inherently valuable no matter what I can do for people. I opened and closed a successful business. I had great love stories and a few not so great love stories. I left the country for the first time and many more times, exploring countries from Cuba to France and more. I had wild adventures. I had a year of sobriety. I had few two-day hangovers as penance for watching the set and rise. I bought my first home and hosted my friends for amazing house concerts. My little Clementine cat found me and made me her cat mom/servant. I was messily human for the first time without shame and many times with so much guilt I didn’t deserve to burden myself with. I found a therapist. I finally learned to let myself exist without constant self-judgment. I learned just to be.

My end of December birthday also means I am a Capricorn. Capricorns are the type A-ist of all the signs. I love a good plan! I ask my Facebook friends to share their resolutions with me every year, and I am known to follow up with them on those resolutions. I especially love the conversations around this particular New Year. Everyone is asking not only “what did you learn this year?” but “What will you do to finish out the decade?” I learned so much as a woman, entrepreneur, and creative person in my 20’s. I want to share a few pieces of advice from my journey to close out 2019.

Remember, It Is All Made Up

If you know me in real life, you’ve heard me say this. It’s all made up. Literally, everything. Someone, somewhere in history, decided everything we know as existence. Which means we can decide to subscribe to it or not. This was the most freeing realization I had in my 20s. I could choose to not listen, not to submit and to pave my path. If I don’t like the way an event, industry, relationship, or experience is handled, I can choose to change it.

With this epiphany also came the idea that I have to do something about the things I don’t subscribe to. I have to support and create systemic changes for women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. I have to work towards a better set of rules. I do not have to act, listen, create — literally do anything — the way other people want me to unless I choose to do so, and neither do you. Everything has a consequence, whether it is good or bad, but if you’re willing to ‘reap what you sow,’ sow your own way baby!

Build a Life Around Not Doing What You Don’t Want To

I hear people say things like, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I hate it. It is also bullshit. Work is work, even if you love it. Also like, sometimes, I want my passions to be my passions and not how I pay my bills. I have found that I am at my happiest, not necessarily when I am doing what I want to do all the time, but when I am not doing the things I don’t want to do. With this mindset, work became more relaxed. The hours felt less stressful. I found joy more quickly in the mundane when I was working towards just not doing what I didn’t want to.

I had enough bad experiences to understand exactly what I didn’t want. I didn’t want a corporate 9–5. I didn’t want to work for or with assholes. I didn’t want a strict desk job. I didn’t want an unequal romantic relationship. I didn’t wish to ever leave things unsaid, even apologies. I have a clear vision of a life that sucks, and I focus on just not having that life. In turn, I find I am super content with the one I do have. Yes, some days, I do have to do things I would prefer were not my job or are extremely difficult. I promise I’m not just walking around “happy’ ing to be here” to everyone, but in pursuit of a life that does not suck, I don’t mind doing most things that maybe aren’t my passions or are hard.

Take Yourself Seriously

As a teenager, I would have taken offense at someone thinking I actually cared about anything. That just wouldn’t have been very punk rock of me now, would it? But in the last nine years, I’ve learned it is the most punk rock thing I’ve ever done to figure out what I care about and pursue it relentlessly. To teenage me, to be punk rock was to be anti. I’ve learned from countless autobiographies of my favorite artists; it is the opposite. It is to care so profoundly you create compulsively. It is to be so raw to the world you pretend it doesn’t matter, but it does. So figure out what matters and be compulsive about it.

Don’t just be earnest about what you do but about yourself. Take yourself seriously. When you make a promise to yourself, keep it. When you say something, mean it. Invest in yourself. Consider yourself a resource and an asset. I think women are especially shamed for taking themselves seriously. I see it a lot on dating apps, “I’m just looking for someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.” How does one accomplish anything significant if they are not taking that pursuit seriously? You can be light-hearted, devastatingly funny, and easy-going but still take yourself seriously. Give a damn!

Find Your People and Your Place

I read a quote from Dolly Parton when I was 23 that stuck with me, “Figure out who you are and do it on purpose.” This has been instrumental to my success in community building. The more I figured out who I was and what I wanted, not what I thought I wanted because of outside pressure or rules, but what I truly wanted and went for it, the more I was able to, like a magnet, attract my people. The more “me” I am, the easier I am to spot to my people, and vice versa.

Growing up in a conservative Texas town did me no favors in the friend department. I was an oddball and never felt comfortable there. I still don’t. Moving to Seattle was the single greatest thing I ever decided to do for myself. I felt deep inside that my people were here, and I was right. Seattle is my home. It is full of oddballs. I love it here. It called me here. If you feel called to a place, move there already. If you see the light in someone, don’t hesitate to say hello. Make finding your home and your people a priority. It is the most important thing you can do.

Fortune Favors The Bold So Go For No

The more settled I feel in myself, the more I trust in my community, the less scary it feels to be bold. The saying is right; fortune favors the bold. The bolder I get, the more I accomplish. I promise you, I wasn’t always such a fearless person. It is a skill I honed. My advice is to start small. Start with a stranger or a new friend. Set a boundary. Send an email to a person you want to work with and ASK for what you want. The worst they can say is no. You’ll live through the no. Very few, “no’s” have killed people. Very few have crippled a career or a relationship worth having.

In sales, you build a “go for no” mentality. If you aren’t getting no and only getting yes, you aren’t asking for enough. You aren’t upselling or pushing the boundary, you’re leaving money on the table. This applies to all areas of your life. If you aren’t hitting roadblocks, you’re not traveling far enough. If you’re not getting push back, you aren’t pushing hard enough. Yes is not the goal, no is the goal. When you hit a no, you can let off the gas a bit, but only for a little while, then I want you to floor it again to the next no.

So that is what I’ve gleaned from my 29 years of life. All of these lessons and philosophies I consider instrumental to everything I’ve been able to accomplish.

So, what did you learn this year? What will you do to finish out the decade?