What can you do in 120 days?
124 days ago I got “fired” for the first time in my career. As a life long overachiever/people pleaser it was a devastating blow. The reverberations of the blow were lessened by the fact that I was fired for standing up for the ethical treatment of myself and the people I managed, but owning the moral high ground didn’t put money in my bank account, assuage my feelings of failure, and certainly didn’t help me get any closer to answering, “What’s next?” So after a few (4) days of reflecting, I took the first step on my path towards figuring it out.
It began with a blog post. Writing is therapy for me. So I reached inside, dug out my deepest feelings, and put them on display for the world to see. For anyone dealing with pain, fear, or shame, I highly encourage you to bring those monsters out into the light. You will be astounded by how much power they lose when when you take them out of hiding. To my great surprise, a representative from The Ascent reached out to me within 15 minutes of me posting and asked for my permission to share the article with their 30k followers. I said yes, and then I cried tears of happiness. I didn’t see the tears coming, but they made sense. It was the first time in almost a week I felt “seen” or like someone was listening and was the catalyst that helped me remember that I have a lot of value.
I spent the next 120 days “hustling.” There is no better term. I met with what felt like every production company in the city. I met with freelancers. I met with entrepreneurs. I met with brand strategists. I met with people who could hire me and people who wanted me to hire them. I listened intently as people shared their visions, founding stories, and goals moving forward. Then I shared more about myself and what I was looking for. If I can be so bold as to offer advice to fellow dreamers/searchers in my position, I think that the order in which I did these things is of vital importance. If you want something from someone else, listen first. Then share. When you’re searching it can be tempting to cut to the chase — to immediately list your professional history highlights and then share what you dream of doing. Most startup/entrepreneurship gurus advise, “If you want to do something, talk about it so people know how to help!” I posit, however, that it is far better to ask questions and thoughtfully listen to the answers before sharing what you want. The most essential part of effective storytelling is knowing how to tailor your message to your audience. It’s important when you are trying to sell anything, including selling yourself, which is exactly what you’re doing when you network.
While networking, I was very honest about my not knowing what was next. I shared my passion about a number of things: creative consulting, brand strategy, and writing and directing videos. I think there is a tendency to worry that disclosing that you have more than one passion could come off as unfocused or uncertain, but in an age in which most people change careers often, I wore my many passion badges with honor. The reality is that if you pretend to only love one thing to suit your audience, and you are an incredible networker, you are likely to find a great job doing that exact thing. But what opportunities might you be missing out on by not disclosing your other interests? I didn’t want to risk missing out on a hybrid dream role that would combine my many passions. So I was an open book, and guess what… it worked.
After doing some pro-bono brand consulting for a brand firm, I was invited to be the paid video consultant on a project with a new, exciting startup. From the first meeting there was great energy between the client team and me. I was excited about their vision and their founding story. Sharing my expertise with them, I felt alive and valuable in a way I hadn’t in a while, specifically because I was able to utilize many of my professional passions. Within a week of starting the project I was asked to coffee by the CEO. Within a week of our first meeting, I had a full-time job offer. When the CEO asked me what a dream job would be for me, I described a hybrid position of creative and strategic work. This, he told me, was exactly the role they saw me playing at the company.
Monday will be my first day as the Director of Brand Strategy for Clearcover, an exciting and very well-funded startup that is asking me to build and maintain their brand (and all of the fun creative assets that go along with that) as well as collaborate with the business development team to help define our growth strategy and the communication style we’ll use to tell a great story to our customers and partners. I’m ecstatic.
What the last 120 days have taught me is that it’s so, totally ok to not know what you want. 120 days ago, I thought I was going to build a creative consulting company. I thought it was what I wanted. Then, as I started doing it and brought on clients, I realized that it might not be what I wanted and that was ok. I asked myself questions daily about what I did want, and I was honest with myself about my strengths and my weaknesses. Now, I am in an incredible situation that I feel grateful for and excited about, and I find myself wondering, “Did all of this really happen in 120 days??”
If you’re a dreamer, a searcher, or someone who is looking for what’s next, the best advice I can give is to get started. While it’s ok to not know exactly what’s next, what isn’t ok is to wait for things to happen to you to help you figure it out. You have to do the work. You have to ask for and accept coffee meeting after coffee meeting. You have to meet with people you think can help you and with people you think can’t help you at all. You have to share your talents, sometimes for free, with people you trust who might be in a position to help you because people like helping people who have helped them. You have to reflect on what you really want so that when you’re asked this question you know exactly what to say. If you do, you’ll be shocked at what you can achieve in 120 days.
