Aline: Multipotentialite Extraordinaire

If you’re ever lucky enough to meet Aline in person, the first thing you’ll notice is that she is a literal ball of energy and positivity. She has an excitedness about her that makes it almost impossible not to smile when in her presence.

She has the power to make even the most banal topics interesting and exciting, as she frequently did back when we were coworkers, enthusiastically gushing about new features within our team’s Salesforce infrastructure. While Salesforce was the literal bane of my existence, to her it was this magical limitless tool of wonder, and with her guidance it was almost hard not to imagine the world of possibilities these new features could open up to us.

Aline has this almost paradoxical mix of self-assuredness, curiosity, and openness that’s infectious, and her career trajectory mirrors these traits. She’s forged her own path, followed her curiosities, and iterated along the way — using each experience to inform what she does and doesn’t like, what she will and won’t do.

One thing’s for sure: she refuses to be boxed in to stereotypes. Those thoughts that hold most of us back — I could never do this, because I’m not like that — aren’t anywhere in her psyche.

The obvious response when she says she’s done one more super cool and random thing: Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you?

Aline can and will try it all. I’m certainly inspired by her story, and I hope you will be too.

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In a Nutshell: Aline’s Career Path

Aline is the literal definition of a multipotentialite.

“I feel like I’ve always been a master of a lot of things. I just chose to dive in to a million different things and learn about all of them. I never settled.”

This desire to learn and try everything started from a young age, when she built her first business — at 12 years old.

“My first “job” I guess you could say was starting my own jewelry making company where I sold jewelry on Misquamicut Beach in Rhode island every summer.”

In addition to making macrame necklaces and selling them on the beach, Aline diversified by giving lessons to kids too.

As high school neared, Aline decided to take things to the next level. She took jewelry display stands, filled them with her jewelry, and shopped them around to local businesses in her hometown. Her secret weapon:

“They couldn’t say no to me — I was this 12 year old who walked in with my creations!”

All that work paid off — funding not one, but two trips to Europe.

I started making it really big in high school, really keeping up with the local businesses. My high school offered two trips to Europe and I really wanted to go. My Mom said, “of course you can go, but you have to pay for it.” So I worked my butt off so that I could go. And I did it!”

She notes: “That’s definitely what caught my travel bug.”

For Aline, college opened up a world of possibilities to learn new and exciting things.

“I studied math, accounting, and Chinese. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just knew what I liked. I liked numbers. I liked puzzles. And I thought Asian culture was really cool.”

Not to mention that studying Chinese got her out of having to take English and science — areas of lesser interest to her.

Aline’s various majors go to show that she’s not one to be boxed in to stereotypes, and would much rather follow her curiosities instead. She credits a favorite quote for this approach:

“Instead of trying to fix your life, just keep adding good things to it, and eventually your life will just be full of good things.”

Aline’s other college jobs are prime examples of fully living that mantra. She worked as a pharmacy tech and ran a group fitness program teaching 10–15 classes per week. Because of course she did.

Like most recent college grads, Aline had a diploma in hand and still no idea of what she wanted to do with her life.

“I had applied to 87 jobs and I didn’t hear back from a single one that really interested me. All I really wanted to do was move to Europe and work for Bus2Alps. So I moved to Europe and was a tour guide for a semester — traveling, giving tours, selling tours. It was exactly what I wanted at that time for my life.”

But after a few months, social pressures got the best of her.

“I was sitting there and thinking — oh sh*t, all my friends are at home getting jobs and apartments and progressing in their careers and lives, so I should probably move home and do that.”

Upon returning to the U.S., she kept her eye on her next goal: moving to NYC. Sadly, this proved a challenging task from her mom’s house Massachusetts.

“I was looking for a job in New York, but no one wanted to hire me because I didn’t live there. I said — I’ll pick up and move don’t worry about it! But they didn’t believe me.”

In the meantime, she kept herself busy by working for a dance competition company as an Assistant Director to the owner. Every week, they’d coordinate and travel to children’s dance competitions around the country. As time went on, Aline noticed a major gap in the owner’s organizational process:

“She was doing everything manually. She would take the application forms, put everyone’s names on a piece of paper, and would organize them in her office in alphabetical order — and that’s how she pulled the show orders. So I was like — Yo! Have you heard of Excel? Let me change your life!”

Aline ended up taking the entire company and automating it online. She realized she had a knack for automating and streamlining processes, and was excited to see the company transform as a result.

“And eventually the season was over and she wanted me to come back next year. And I said — I have to move to NY. I have to do this. So I decided to move to NY with some money saved. And I signed a 3 month sublet and said, if I can’t find a job in 3 months, I’ll move back home.”

Indeed, Aline is nothing if not determined.

“I always had the dream of moving to NY, a dream that I had to accomplish…There was just a number of opportunities to grow and learn and try new things. And as a person who loves to try new things all the time, it really was the perfect place for me to do that.”

Aline hit the pavement from day one in NYC, going to 15 different gyms around the city and offering to teach for them, getting on every sub list and gym roster that she possibly could.

She also joined a temp agency, where she experienced a variety of different roles in multiple offices.

“I really think that every person should work for a temp agency. I got to work at 15–20 companies doing a bunch of random things. It was really cool to see a lot of different office dynamics. And I think that people who get jobs right out of college and go straight there miss that learning curve.”

Aline ended up sticking with a finance temp job for about 8 months and hated every minute of it.

“It was probably the least Aline thing you could ever imagine. I was doing client reporting. I had to wear a black suit every day. My suit couldn’t have pinstripes, no decoration. I had to wear a plain white shirt, black pumps. At the time I had pink hair and I had to cut all my pink hair off because it wasn’t allowed. It was soul sucking.”

It was here that Aline came face to face with the realities of traditional work:

I specifically remember standing outside the office every single morning crying to my mom, being like, “This is awful! This can’t be what work is!”

One day, a colleague that knew about Aline’s affinity for fitness classes suggested she try Class Pass. Aline had never heard of it.

“So I googled it and was like — oh god, $100 a month? I would never pay for fitness because I teach it so I get it for free. But I would totally work there!”

She started applying for jobs with the company and eventually found an entry-level role that matched her skill set. This was her ticket out of the finance world.

“I applied for it, had my interview, and I think I cried during the interview begging her to hire me. ‘This is my dream job, please let me have it!’”

That transparency paid off. She got the job, and while she loved the company, she didn’t feel remotely challenged in the role. At her 2 week check-in, Aline fearlessly opened up to her new manager about how she was feeling:

“It’s really great. I love the company. I love the vibe. I have my pink hair back. I’m feeling more like me. I love our mission, I think it’s really great, but….I want to let you know that this is really boring and I’m too smart for this job. And I need to be challenged. And I don’t know what I want to do, but I like to solve problems and I like puzzles and I’ll learn anything you throw at me.”

Mic drop.

Without hesitation, her manager set up entire new projects for Aline — one handling a tax challenge, another solving an online scheduling problem. And then, the project that would mark a major pivot in Aline’s career path.

They proposed to me that I take over their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) — their entire database. At the time we used a program called Relate IQ, which is like a smaller version of Salesforce. No one knew how to run it, no one knew what was going on, and they basically said, ‘We want you to learn this. We want you to figure it out and be the owner of it.’”

And that’s exactly what she did. After 6 months, it became clear that the company had scaled enough to require an upgrade to Salesforce.

“At that point we hired a Salesforce person to come in and be my mentor. I learned everything about Salesforce from there and that kind of started my career in the Salesforce world.”

That’s how Aline ended up as the Queen of Salesforce (actual title: Senior Sales Systems and Operations Manager) where we met, at a work and travel company called Remote Year. As a fully remote worker, she leveraged the role to travel the world.

These days, Aline’s still remote, but she’s reunited with some of her former Class Pass coworkers in a new gig as Systems Lead at Flatiron School.

What’s next on Aline’s to do list?

Pottery class.

“Because I want to learn how to do the hand throwing thing and I think it’ll be really fun.”

Aline — adding good things, one cool skill at a time.

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Adding It Up: Confirming My Happiness Formula Assumptions

Here’s how Aline’s journey adds up to my assumptions about finding happiness in your career:

Hands-on Opportunities

• Aline learned about business and sales from starting her own jewelry company and working at Bus2Alps in Europe.
• Aline’s experience at the temp agency enabled her to try out 15–20 different jobs and office environments to see where she fit — and more importantly, didn’t fit.

A Supervisor’s Faith

• Aline’s boss at the dance competition company gave her the reins to automate the entire company.
• Aline’s boss at Class Pass took Aline’s mic drop moment to heart — giving her the freedom to work on a variety of new projects and take ownership of the company’s entire CRM database.

An Inspiring Mentor

• Aline’s Salesforce guru mentor paved the way for Aline to learn everything she needed to succeed in the world of Salesforce management.

A Supportive Community

• Aline credits her mom for being her rock — her support system through all the highs and lows.

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Aline’s Tips for Career Shifters and People that Feel Stuck:

Add good things:

“So I stumbled upon this quote a really long time ago and it really resonated with me and it said — instead of trying to fix your life, just keep adding good things to it. And eventually your life will just be full of good things.”

“So whenever I’m feeling really bored or stuck or stagnant in any part of my life, I try to add something new and exciting. And maybe it’s something I really like or maybe it’s something I don’t like, but if you keep adding new things to your life, eventually your life will just be full of new and exciting things. And I’ve always tried to stick with that.”

Let fear motivate you:

“My mom told me that it was very important to be a well rounded person and to continue to try new things always. A lot of my mom’s clients will say — ‘Oh your daughter is so brave, she just picks up across the world and moves,’ and my mom says ‘ No she’s scared shitless, she just does it anyway.”

“My fears motivate me. If i’m scared of something, that’s usually right where I head.”

“I’m never fearful of figuring it out. If it doesn’t work — you’ll find plan B. It doesn’t always have to be plan A. There’s a plan B, C, D. Maybe life won’t be exactly what you want it to be for a hot second, but you’ll figure it out. You keep adding those good things back in and you’ll figure it out.

Find a support system:

“I think it’s really important to find a support system. I’m really lucky — my mom is probably the greatest human being on planet earth and I know that no matter how many times I f*ck up, I have a place to go and I have someone there to support me.”

Figure out what you really like and what environments you thrive in:

“I’m really good at identifying what I like and what makes me feel good. I know what environments I need to be in to feel productive. I know what type of manager I need to have in order to be a productive and successful employee.”

“I’m happy now because my manager and I have a coworking relationship. I have full control over the things that I’m working on that actions that I take. Not everyone loves that. One of my friends said to me: “I would hate not to know what I need to accomplish in a given day. I know when I go in I have this checklist and I have to finish it.”

“So you really have to be true to yourself. Am I the kind of person that can work off a checklist to be fulfilled? Or am I the kind of person who needs to have that sort of creativity and ownership and accountability? Because I think that’s where true fulfillment comes from.”