Latest / Many Things with Steph Libby / Dealing with career journey disappointments

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Dealing with career journey disappointments · Many Things with Steph Libby

Hello.
Hello.
Welcome back to many things.
I'm Steph.
I'm multi-passionate.
I'm doing many things, usually all at once, trying to build a life I love.
And this is the podcast where I talk about all of it.
What do you do when you feel like you're fumbling your way through your career? We all experience disappointment in work, but it hits harder when you're taking initiative, planning a pivot, or just trying to grow, especially if you feel like you're getting mixed signals from those above you.
If you're multi-passionate like me, you're probably sensitive to criticism and your own self-doubt or past experiences compound that negative self-talk.
So today I wanna talk about a recent disappointing experience at my work, how I'm overcoming it, how I'm using it to motivate me in my career, pivot.
And I'm also gonna talk about my career journey and how I got to where I am today, because sometimes looking back can help us figure out where we want to go next.
If you listen to my last episode, you know that I've been exploring a career pivot, and I was really excited about it.
I was trying to define a new role at my work, and I was feeling invigorated and unstoppable And then I had a conversation with leadership and it was like a record scratch.
I felt like the world stopped, I felt defeated.
Um, this was a couple weeks ago.
It took me a little bit of time to process this, but process it.
But that whole weekend I felt really defeated.
I felt like the wind got knocked out of me.
I'm not gonna get into all the details, but essentially, um, I didn't get the response I was looking for.
It wasn't a no.
But it didn't really feel like a resounding yes either.
In short, I feel like my personality kind of got attacked.
I'm not sure why I was told that I wasn't outgoing enough by my own boss, and that despite other people telling him that I'm outgoing, that that hasn't been his experience with me.
One of the things I had on my skills development list is being assertive.
Essentially like speaking with some authority, being able to speak eloquently and clearly, and be better at giving like direct feedback.
And he said, that'll never be you.
It's just not in your nature.
And the one thing I realized during this conversation.
Was that this entire exchange is exactly why they need someone advocating for culture changes, for employee experience.
I am open to feedback, obviously.
I just think that there's a time and a place for it, and to me, this didn't feel like the place for that specific feedback, you know? You say you want people with initiative and ideas, and you say you want people to take their work seriously and their career pathing seriously, and you wanna do everything you can to support it.
But when they come to you with initiative, with ideas and excitement, you do whatever you can to like squash it.
Um, someone told me that they were having a bad day and um, that could have been part of it, but that still doesn't feel like quite right with me.
I guess like it seemed like by me putting together a list of things I could work on or that could fall under this role, they took it as me saying that none of this is being done.
Which I, I thought I had explicitly said when I gave it to them that this wasn't what I was trying to imply.
I just think that there are a lot of, um, disparate piece, disparate pieces that individuals are working on.
It might make sense to like unify them under one role over time.
Especially if we continue to say that we have a a culture problem.
You know, having everything, multiple people working on different directions doesn't really help.
I just thought, I guess like I just thought that this would be a good time as a first conversation to understand what they're looking to get outta the role and what areas of culture they want to see the most impacted.
What issues do they see? And I could have done a better job coming into that conversation with those questions for sure.
But once the air was getting sucked out of the room, it felt futile.
It felt like I needed to find some golden nugget in the deluge feedback I was getting.
If the day was returned, I think I would've had the conversation be more about the opportunity and the possibilities and the potential of the role and the realities of how the company supports this person, and talk more in depth about next steps.
And then in a couple weeks time, you know, then give like a little, a little bit of feedback and then a couple weeks go by, give like another little bit more feedback.
It just, it seemed like counterintuitive to just sort of.
Drop all of this feedback that they maybe have been harboring.
Um, I felt like there have been ample opportunities to like, say some of this stuff to me, not just, not just like in this particular conversation.
The other thing I realized was that they're probably not gonna let me do all the things I'd like to under this new role.
I don't even know if I can call it a new role.
It just sort of felt like I'm gonna keep doing the same thing, but.
Anyway, it was also clear that they didn't want to talk about the culture problems and that they were not going to be fully open to a lot of ideas or recommendations I have, and that's really, really frustrating.
I really thought about sending them a thanks, but no thanks.
The following Monday after our conversation, I'm no longer interested in expanding my role, but then I thought that's just.
That's just letting them win and putting myself at a disadvantage and making myself smaller because they're feeling attacked or fragile.
Or superior or, whatever mess of feelings they're feeling.
Like, I don't know if this is like their idea of mentorship.
I don't know if like this is, this is just like their leadership style obviously.
So, um, that's, that's always like a difficult place to be in, but I'm trying to.
Make the best of it.
And I thought I can either let this defeat me and I can sulk and be whiny and be disappointed, which honestly, like even a couple weeks later, I'm still a little salty about it.
Or I can keep moving forward and prove them wrong, prove that I can be outgoing, prove that I, I am capable, prove that I have good ideas.
It sucks that I feel like I have to like prove myself so much.
Because I feel like I've already shown that I can have good ideas.
I feel like I've already shown that I can be outgoing if other people are telling me that I can be outgoing.
I feel like I have proven that I can be capable and think things through, because that's literally what I put in front of you.
But I guess thought versus action are like two different things, and I'm learning that that is something that they.
Think a lot of people struggle with, um, is like saying something and then not following through.
Do I feel like they do that constantly? Yes.
It's a little, that's also like a little irritating, but why? Why put myself at a disadvantage? Because they're close-minded.
Why make myself smaller? Because they're afraid of big ideas or because they're not sure of my abilities.
The thing is I'm still really invested in changing the culture.
I'm still really invested in this work in general.
And learning about different methodologies and strategies and then figuring out how to tailor it to my specific work environment.
I believe everyone should enjoy where they work.
I feel like everyone should feel like they can learn the most at a place where they're spending 40 plus hours a week.
I feel like people should be able to expand their skillset and ask for more and be treated with respect in the workplace.
Just 'cause you're paying people money doesn't mean.
Um, they have to shut up and take everything.
You know, like I just feel like it, and aside from just like individual enjoyment, it just makes us stronger.
As a team, it helps us be more profitable.
It helps us all get on the same page.
It helps, um, alleviate, you know, people not looking forward to coming to work 'cause they don't wanna have to see or talk to a particular person.
Um, and anyway, and I believe people who wanna be seen and heard at work should be able to be seen and heard.
And we spend a lot of time at work and I think it's important for you to.
Even if you don't enjoy the work you're doing, you should have a normal, respectable, enjoyable work environment.
Because at the end of the day, like it's so much harder to be a good business when everyone is, um, not on the same page.
So, um, so that deep interest, that willing to start at the beginning and, and work through the awkwardness, being able to see things a little more holistically, that is the strength of being multi-passionate, of being a multipotentialite.
That is my sweet spot.
You have, you have to keep going.
You have to keep trying.
You can't let other people and their opinions stand in the way of you going after your goals.
It's important to keep everything in perspective one person's opinion.
Doesn't need to hold that much weight.
That's something I'm learning.
It's so hard to learn and it's something to say to yourself and then believe it.
But they are just one person.
Like for every opinion like theirs, there are just as many people who think the opposite.
You're not everyone's cup of tea, you know? And, and not everyone is your cup of tea.
And my whole life I've let these external opinions convince me to give up.
I, I trust my own opinion to an extent, but then I reach a point where.
Where I chicken out, I give in and I take on those external voices as fact, as though they are absolute, and I shortchange myself and then I start to believe what they're saying about me.
Even if I deep down feel the opposite and I look back later on and think like, why did I do that? Why did I, why? What if I just bet on myself? What if I hadn't listened to my mom's principal friend that said no one was going to hire me as a teacher because I was too educated without enough experience? What if I had let myself be scared? What if I hadn't listened to my parents when they said that I needed to find any stable job and stay there as long as I can? What if I didn't let the voices of old Lire past.
Sneak into the room every time I sit down and write.
What if I didn't listen when people told me that self-publishing wasn't real writing? And what if I hadn't listened to my own defeatist negative self-talk? And even if I don't do everything that I wanna do, getting to do some of it is still a good experience.
And it could still lead to really good things, even if I'm not executing on the full vision I have at work.
If I don't do any of it, I'm just going to get stuck in the same position I have been.
And that doesn't work for me either.
I've also tried to look at it from a more positive perspective.
Um, try to find like the silver lining in it.
If they don't really care about this role, if they're not super invested in this, if they think it's like, oh, we really need our couple small behavior adjustments.
We don't like need someone dedicating so much time to this, which they didn't necessarily say, but I have a feeling that this won't become like a full part-time role for me.
I think it'll, and I don't think it'll lead to more money.
I don't think it'll lead to a title change.
I'll be shocked if it does, frankly.
But, um.
I mean, I know they're invested in it to an extent, but I don't know that we have the same vision.
I think we have the same end goals.
I think they have, they're gonna have very different ideas of like how to get there, I guess.
And if they're not as invested in this as I am, then that just means less pressure on me.
I, I keep acting like because they're not as invested, that means more pressure on me.
But it is the opposite.
Like if, if they are only.
They only care about it a little bit then like I don't need to put, I obviously still wanna care about it a lot, but I don't need to carry the weight of that pressure.
Um, I don't need to have these crazy high expectations for myself.
If it feels like they're only half in this, then I don't need the guilt trip.
You know, I don't need a guilt trip myself or feel like I need to burn the candle at both ends.
I don't need to put a new pressure on myself, like I have enough going on.
I don't need that.
I feel like they're not going to give me extra time to work on these things.
They, they said they are, but they also, um, kind of said that, well, that's sort of on me to figure that out.
I don't know, it's just, it kind of feels like they think I should be able to do this whole other job on top of the job that I'm already doing.
And I think they think that because I don't think.
They necessarily care about some of the bigger things that I think would be worth doing.
I think they just think like, you know, just try to have more conversations with people and just try to like, give out more bonus, say points and, you know, keep planning your lunch and learns.
I, I don't think they realize that there are like, fundamental things that are like not working well and that it takes more than just a couple of lighthearted conversations to actually change culture.
Um, it also kind of feels like at times that they want me to, like, they're not expecting me to manage or do anything like that, but it does feel like they are offloading some like very important interpersonal things onto me.
And that I feel like it in some ways, like some of that is being set up.
I'm being set up to fail 'cause it's not really my job, it just feels like in some ways, like they just want me to be, they don't want a yes man, but it's almost like they just want me to like challenge anyone that says anything bad about them or this place and that that's gonna be better culture.
Like if people don't feel like you're invested in them.
I feel like my bosses are invested in them.
Then I'm supposed to tell them like, no, they are invested in you.
Like, look at what they've helped me try to figure out.
But then at the same time, I'm sitting here thinking like, all they did was like, give me permission to do some of these things.
No one is like, I don't feel like I'm necessarily being mentored.
I set up my own goals and they just like, yes, and they always say like, oh, well if people wanna advance, it's, you know, it's really on them.
But it's like, yeah, but there's still like a you component to it.
There's still like a leadership component to it.
There's still a workplace incentive component to it.
Like it, I don't know, something about the work I'm gonna put into it and the reward I'm gonna get from it feels like.
I need to set my expectations as, don't expect to get money.
Don't expect to get a title change.
Don't expect to be able to do a lot that you're gonna be able to like, brag about in hopes of getting a better job somewhere else.
Doing more, um, employee experience stuff, because I'm not gonna like build up that much experience.
I'm just gonna like, learn a lot.
And it's like, and I think it's like, well how am I supposed to like, take all this stuff I'm learning and put it into something new? But anyway.
Something that was really interesting that happened this past week I had a meeting with a career counselor.
It's part of the Lunch and Learn program.
I organize at work and it's, it's really putting some things into perspective and kind of adding another layer onto all the things that I've been talking about, um, about my work.
And, no, I'm not gonna talk about the consultation just yet, but between the meeting I have with my bosses and the meeting with the, with the career counselor, what I do wanna reflect a bit on today is how I got where I am, and I realized that like I've just been battling for so long.
That I didn't really get into what all of this means for what I wanna talk about today, which is not griping about my work, but is actually talking about my career journey and how I got here.
Because one thing I'm realizing as a multi pod is, is that our career paths often don't look like everyone else.
And I've always felt a lot of shame and guilt around the money I've spent.
Or still owe rather, on an education that I don't use every day or an education that I don't use most days.
It's made me feel foolish and stupid and irresponsible.
But learning that other multi-passionate people also tend to find themselves in a similar situation has been so healing.
And even if you're not a multi pod, but you've.
Also had a long winding path.
It's okay.
I know it doesn't feel okay a lot of the time.
Most of the time, whatever your path looks like might feel like a waste, but I encourage you to really let that go.
It's, it's not serving you.
It hasn't served me.
It's really held me back and it's probably holding you back more from reaching your potential or reaching more of your potential than you might realize.
Plus we gotta give ourselves a little bit of grace.
We pretty much hand 18-year-old kids a blank check when most of us have probably only worked weekend jobs up to that point.
Like we don't have any clue about real money, real finance, long-term impact of.
Financial decisions, what did, how long it really takes to pay back a loan, what real life actually costs, and like what taking out those loans is gonna mean for you 10, 20 years down the line.
Um.
You know, my house costs aow as much as my college education, and I had to go through way more hoops to get my mortgage, uh, in my mid thirties than I did my student loans.
But they're basically the same repayment terms, you know, like at 18, you can't know what you wanna do at 20, let alone 30.
Forties, fifties, whatever.
At 18, we made the best guess we could and it was basically a really expensive gamble.
And I don't know about you, but my career path has been really long and winding and like not linear whatsoever.
And I'm watching all these other people around me have like these very linear.
Easily tracked, milestone sort of careers.
And my, but like my life has always been filled with different jobs, different side hustles, part-time gigs on top of full-time gigs.
I've always been a busy little beaver and, um, you know.
For instance, while getting my second master's, I had a full-time day job as a marketer.
I also taught two adult ed classes each week.
One in fiction, one in memoir.
A couple years later, still had a full-time job, still teaching writing classes, added on a part-time freelance marketing gig, and on the board of trustees at an art school, and volunteered at a nonprofit for unhoused families.
When I was an undergrad, I had a part-time job at peco, but I was also a tutor, uh, in the student center.
And it wasn't until maybe this year at 38 when I really started to see how it all fits together.
Teaching, writing and arts have always been the undercurrents of my life.
It's been really hard to understand why none of those things are part of the way I make the majority of my income.
It's just really wild.
Like I put all this investment into teaching, writing and the arts, and none of that investment is actually.
Helping me pay off, uh, my student loans.
It's just, it's just so wild to me.
Um, I'm sure that as you hear me say these jobs, you're like, wait, Steph, these are totally related.
Sure, they're related, but none of it felt like it was building on each other in a meaningful way.
It sounds good on paper and it feels like there's like some sort of trajectory happening there, but.
What some of these roles actually entailed in my inexperience, trying to pull off things that were way above my experience level didn't really help the way I thought it would, instead of empowering me and making me feel like I've got it.
That I understand what it's I'm doing and that I'm good at it.
It made me feel really unsure of myself.
It made me feel like I failed.
So every time I seemingly achieve something that that looked good on paper, it was actually making me feel like I was taking a step farther back.
And I feel like that's a really hard thing to try to explain to someone if they've never felt that way.
Um, long story short.
I've always felt really, really insecure, um, about my career path.
It's hard to think about sometimes.
I sunk a lot of money into my education thinking that I was going to achieve something great.
I was going to change lives.
I was gonna make a big impact.
I wanted to write, I wanted to teach.
I wanted to own my own business.
I wanted to create my own nonprofit.
I wanted to help change other people's lives.
I was so certain of what I wanted, but so completely uncertain as how to get it.
Or, or maybe more accurately how to do it.
All my dreams were really big and I didn't believe in myself enough, and I didn't think I could do it all.
I'm not, you know, I, I really did feel like I had to pick something and that left me with like a lot of decision paralysis.
So I did nothing instead, you know, was better than doing something, just nothing.
It makes no sense, but, and I'm not someone who gives up easily, but.
At that time, it was especially easy for me to believe that no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn't really get anywhere I wanted to do the work, but the work felt futile.
Um, as I mentioned earlier, someone told me that I was too educated for, um, to find a public school teaching job, but not educated enough to find work at a private school.
So.
After I got my education degree, I didn't move forward with the teaching portion.
Um, like you're supposed to get your degree and, and you do like some observation hours while you're getting the degree, but then you still have in order to get your teaching.
Certificate you have to complete, um, basically like another year of school where you do a student, you do student teaching, and then you, um, do some portfolio work around it and everything.
And I used to be so invested in educational policy, um, how we could make schools better for kids, how we could help nurture more of their talents and the way that, so, so many wonderful teachers, who helped nurture me and my talents but I didn't move forward with the teaching, the teaching portion.
It just, at that time, I just didn't think it would work well for me.
It was a lot of money I would have to like, leave my job and, do the student teaching.
I did not have enough money.
I didn't feel comfortable taking out more loans, especially because at that point, like I had already been told by, um.
A few people that it would probably be really hard to find a teaching job that would like.
Pay enough to pay all this stuff back.
And at one point I thought about like, well, maybe I'd go work at like a KIPP school because I knew someone who was, who was working at a KIPP school and they paid really, really well.
But there was just like a lot of uncertainty around like what I would be making back and be able to like.
Reinvest or pay back the, the loans I took out.
And that was really, really scary.
I already felt like I had made a bad choice going back to school again and then feeling like I had nothing to turn that into was really scary too.
And when I was in college and we were, you know, I was getting this degree in education, there were so many.
Brilliant people.
I was surrounded by like real, real heady thinkers around education and, but they also had so much experience, like so many of these people were like already doing it, you know? And I was just living in like this theoretical world.
But they were able to move through theory, but also live and practice and.
I was just in awe of them and I felt really, really dumb and I felt really, really small and I just felt like these are some of the brightest people I've ever met and they're going to change kids' lives, um, and they're gonna do it so well and they just seem to like, have such a grasp on it.
And I felt like I was struggling to make they all like these really cool, um, lesson plans that were like interactive and really rooted in deep pedagogy and.
It was just like, I felt like I just couldn't keep up, and it made me feel like really, really dumb and made me feel like I, this was like not a good idea and that I, I wasn't gonna be successful at this as much as I wanted it.
Um, it was really hard too.
I remember, this is gonna sound so stupid, but, um.
I remember like around the time that I was going to school for teaching, um, new Girl was really, really popular.
The show with, um, Zoe Dechanel.
And she plays, you know, at, at one point in the show, like early on, she's like a, I think like a kindergarten teacher or something like that.
She's like a teacher.
And I remember for the longest time I like could not watch that show because it made me so sad to watch any show that had that.
Meant like had anybody teaching in it at all.
And frankly, I think that's why I also like, took a step back from the novel I was working on for so long because it deals with like a professor and a student and um, that was like a little bit too close to home.
And I honestly like, that might have been why I also started to check out of like some of the other things that I had been doing at the time.
Everything just felt like.
Reminded me of teaching and how I wasn't going to be a teacher, and it just didn't seem like it was in the cards for me and nothing seemed to really pan out and um, and I probably could have done it.
I was just so nervous and.
Um, I really wanted to teach middle school and I think what had also made me nervous was originally I wanted to teach college, and then it was like, no, I'm not gonna teach college.
I'm gonna teach high school.
And then I didn't wanna teach high school anymore.
I wanted to teach middle school.
And I just felt like, man, like every time you work with a different group of people, you're like, that's the group I wanna work with.
So I just felt that made me feel a little uneasy.
It made me feel like I wasn't quite settled on what I wanted to do.
Um, and it made me.
I would think, I was also nervous that like if I did my student teaching in a middle school, then I'd be stuck in middle school and like I wouldn't be able to make it out or I, I, once I got my student teaching and I got the job, I realized like I didn't wanna be there.
But God, if I could like go back and do things all over again, I would have just like.
Spent on myself, done the student teaching and like tried to find a way to make it as a teacher and I would not be making a lot of money, but I think I would've found a way through.
When I was in college, I didn't feel.
Particularly invested in the work in, you know, in like the prep of it all.
Like I love debating education philosophies and learning about different methodologies I loved learning about innovative lesson plans and how kids responded to them, I loved reading memoirs about teaching, but I didn't make the time to read all the texts like I should have.
It was always a scramble to get it done, and I don't know why that was.
I know now that I'm that multi-passionate people get very bored once they've dived deep into something because we don't necessarily specialize in anything.
We just really like to learn and we're very curious people.
I loved the brief classroom practicums.
I completed and I loved being on the board of trustees for an art school, but I was meek and I didn't do what I think I was supposed to do in a lot of those cases.
I did a lot of observing and taking things in but I didn't do a lot of like actual assisting when I was in the classroom.
I didn't do a lot of the doing when I was on the board of trustees and I felt in.
I felt in over my head.
I felt like I wasn't contributing in the ways I really wanted to.
I felt really inferior in a lot of situations.
I think I focused on a lot of the wrong things.
I got really in my head about a lot of things and I overthought things and I I didn't follow through on a lot of things that I really should have.
And I think a lot of that has stuck with me.
And I think that's why when I look back on some of these experiences, I think, was it worth it? I don't know anything I'm inexperienced.
It's because, like, I didn't take as a, as much advantage of some of these opportunities that I had at the time.
I thought I kind of was, but I think I also kind of knew, like I don't.
I really know what I'm supposed to do and something I've always struggled with is like wanting to be the person that knows the best path forward.
But like, I don't I think in some ways I erroneously think that if you were the person making the plan and making the strategy, then that means you've got it all figured out.
And you're doing the best, most work and all that stuff, but it's like, it's not true.
You know? There were a lot of times where I could have just like listened a little bit more and I was just so eager to prove that I mattered, that I think I stepped on my own toes and got in my own way a lot of the time.
So I got to thinking like, is this for me? Is this what I, is this what I want? I didn't know, but it didn't seem prudent to leave my job and do student teaching.
Um, like I said, I couldn't afford it, and it just seemed like sinking more money into an uncertain trajectory.
And so then I fell into marketing.
Marketing was.
First and foremost available to me.
Um, it seemed pretty stable.
It seemed like a practical backup choice, and that's what it was.
It was a backup.
It's always been a backup.
I never wanted to be in marketing.
I remember thinking it seemed predatory and boring.
I distinctly remember people talking about marketing as a field of, of study when I was in high school.
Marketing's always been a thing, obviously, but it was getting pushed really hard in the early two thousands as a career path, at least where I went to school.
It's a means to an end, but as a career, I just don't like it.
So the fact that I knew that I wouldn't like it when I was 16, 17, and here I am doing it at 38.
It's been my entire ca real career path.
It's, it's sad to me.
I've spent nearly.
What, like maybe 15 or so years doing something I do not like.
That's, that's really depressing for me.
That's like I, I know for other people they're like, they love marketing or a job's a job and they don't really care what they're doing, but I am really not that kind of person.
That's something that I'm really grappling with.
I think it's not a new thing to grapple with, but it is definitely like hitting harder a lot more lately.
Stability was really, really important when I was graduating with my bachelor's, because I graduated in May of 2009, still in the very real aftermath of the housing crisis bubble burst of 2008.
Um, the economy was shit and there was no moving back in with my parents or.
You know, rooming with friends or anything like that, I needed to make money and I needed to make it work.
When I graduated, I was working overnights at a gas station because it allowed me to work full-time, earn $2 more an hour than the daytime shift and let me go to school in the day, and things weren't much better.
When I graduated with my MFA in 2011, the economy was still recovering.
I didn't believe in myself enough to go after the jobs I really wanted, and the jobs I probably qualified for, like those jobs also didn't seem to pay more than what I was earning at the gas station, but they seemed like a lot more work.
So, um, you know, I had looked at like, what if I got like a, a little job as like a nonprofit admin or whatever they, I, I can't remember exactly what was getting paid, but we'll just say like $9 is probably what I was making at the gas station, nine or $10.
And when I would apply for these admin jumps, some of them were like minimum wage.
Some of them were.
Less than what I was making.
It seemed foolish to start a job.
Just because I thought I would like it more and make less money.
Like I was already having a hard time making ends meet.
I was already really depressed how little money I had, you know? And so I found a job at a student loan collection agency.
There was a customer that came into the gas station all the time and he said we're hiring and, you should apply.
And, and so I applied to be a student loan collector.
And then, and I got the job and I went through training and.
I wasn't a horrible student loan collector.
I.
Hit some of my initial goals and stuff like that, but I was obviously more into like counseling people.
Um, it's hard to call people and be like, you, oh, you have no money.
And like again, like we're in, still really in the aftermath of the housing crisis and a horrible economy, and I'm calling up people who like can barely afford to like put food on the table and asking them to pay their student loan bill back but what I did like about that job is getting to talk to a lot of different people and getting to like, hear their story.
But that was not what the collection agency wanted.
They didn't want me to like, have conversations with these people.
They just wanted them to pay their bills.
So anyway, I did not like it and I ended up working my way into an admin job.
At the same place.
And then I worked my way into an RFP writer position that they had there in the sales department.
And then that involved into a marketing position over time, um, when they created a marketing department.
I met some good leaders who took me with them when they left, and I got laid off during COVID and then took a job at, um, the marketing agency that I work at now.
And I knew I didn't wanna work at an agency, but I needed a job.
So I applied to everything I could, and this one wanted to hire me, so I, and it was during COVID, not a lot of people were hiring, so just getting a new job at that time was a miracle.
So I took it and it paid pretty well compared to what I had been making and everything was good.
While doing all this, I've tinkered with my novels, had stories published, taught writing classes, got three degrees, did freelance work, volunteered and, and a million other things.
And I give you this Cliff Notes version because I think it's really important for us, especially multipotentialite, to take, um, to take time, to look holistically at our path and to look at our career paths and.
To look at some of these things like marketing is not my passion by any means.
Marketing is a means to an end and it can be really difficult to, to deal with the fact that I am not living up to my potential, that I'm not working my dream job at.
But at the same time, I've never been able to define what that dream job is other than, you know, of course being a novelist, but that doesn't feel like a tangible career path to someone as type A as me.
I feel like there's so much wrapped in that dream that is out of my control, that career path, quote unquote, doesn't feel like an.
Appropriate term.
Um, so if I can't define what my dream job is, then I can't really be mad that I haven't achieved it yet.
There is a major upside though, to things not going as planned, but it's really hard some days to see these silver linings.
Things like resilience, new skills that I probably would have rallied against acquiring or straight up avoided.
You know, I'm here creating a podcast and essentially trying to market it when I get enough courage to do so.
So my marketing background is one less learning curve I need to work around in this new thing that I'm trying to do.
Um, that's a silver lining.
I'm trying really hard to resin the narrative in my head that I failed.
To, I'm learning.
I'm just, I'm, I'm picking up different skills.
I'm learning different things.
Like I've always called myself a jack of all trades, a lifelong learner and everything like, except my job.
I, I don't, I rarely think about my jobs as contributing to that lifelong learning.
I wanna start looking at this chapter of my life, though it's been a very long one as simply more learning.
This chapter is about learning about marketing, and my next chapter is yet to be written and, but I will probably learn about something else in that in the next chapter of my story.
And I think most multi pods would call themselves lifelong learners.
As such, I think we tend to reinvent ourselves constantly.
There's always like a new thing we wanna learn.
There's always a new rabbit hole to dive into.
So in the end, there's nothing really off about what I'm doing.
Working in marketing isn't me and not achieving my dream job.
It's not a failure.
It's just one of the many versions of myself that exists.
It's just one of the many things that I'm doing in my lifetime.
But it's clear I have a strong desire to help people.
It's clear I have ambition.
It's clear that I'm passionate about arts and education and writing.
It's clear that I wanna make the world a better place, and it's clear that my anxiety needs some stability in my life.
Otherwise, the anxiety just becomes too overwhelming and it makes it really easy for depression to take over when there's, when I don't feel stable, um, maybe my job sucks.
Maybe it's also that it's felt like it's the only thing I have going on.
Most of the time, for the last few years I've been in a major, major rut.
I haven't been writing as much or reading as much as I would like to.
I haven't been immersed in the arts.
I haven't been around creative people.
I, so I haven't.
Been very well-rounded.
I haven't been exploring and learning as much as I would like, and by not diversifying my interest in how I spend my time, it puts a lot of pressure on my day job to fulfill so many areas that it just simply can't.
So of course, I end up frustrated, desperately unfulfilled.
This job was never meant to satisfy all areas of my life.
It's taken a long winding path to get here, but I.
Really hoping that all of this hard work turned into something good, into something better.
I hope that I can prove myself in these new work culture initiatives, and I hope that it's enough to spin up into something bigger and bolder at my next job, that I finally reach my potential, that I finally find my niche that the, that the thing.
The thing that sticks, but there's still that voice in my head telling me that I'm not good enough, and that's a tough nut to crack.
One last tangent.
One of my biggest regrets in life and if there's any advice I can offer to someone.
Who maybe is different from myself, but I think this is like ubiquitous and and useful to anybody.
One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn't know my worth when I was in my early twenties.
I discounted and discredited myself at every turn.
I earned far, far less than I could have.
I earned far less than I was capable of.
I earned far less than what I was worth.
Now I feel like I am constantly playing catch up.
And if I had earned a little bit more in my twenties, I don't know that I would be feeling like I'm under so much pressure right now.
Why was it so much easier to discredit myself than to believe in myself? Beyond pay? You know, like, let's put that aside for a minute.
I simply haven't believed in myself.
I got stuck in marketing because I didn't think I was good enough to be a teacher to bet on myself as a full-time writer.
I let.
I let the idea of futility and not earning a reliable income steer me away from the things that fuel me the most.
But now I feel like I'm slowly finding my way back to them and I'm slowly starting to understand my worth.
And part of that I think, is because I've been looking back at my schooling, at the jobs I had, and giving myself a bit more credit.
These are not easy things to be doing, especially when I had been doing so many of them at once.
I know it sounds corny and hokey, but like we, I hope that if you're listening to this, that you can, like, I hope you're capable of believing in yourself more than I have been capable of believing in myself because I think.
We compare ourselves to people a lot.
I think that's human nature.
I think it's natural for a lot of us to just assume the worst of ourselves because that somehow in our mind, justifies keeping us safe, lowering our expectations.
You can't be disappointed, all that kind of stuff, but.
You know, I think all that fear eventually catches up to you, and I think that that's what I'm dealing with a lot right now and trying my best to sort of work through is like that fear is finally caught up and that's why I feel so behind.
But I don't know that I need to feel like I'm behind because.
I haven't defined the thing that I'm trying to achieve.
And, and as frustrating and as corny as it sounds, it's like everything that we've done in the past has led us here.
Different choices have given us different insight.
Different jobs have given us different perspective.
Different experiences have all culminate together in some way, and I think that that is.
Probably the hardest thing for a multi-passionate person is to be like, okay, but like what is that thing? And I think I am so close to like figuring out what it is and if it's not one particular thing, what the balance of all my different interests.
Where's that? Where's that sweet spot? You know, where does everything feel kind of balanced? Where does everything feel like it's really fulfilling me in the ways that I wanna be fulfilled, in the way that I want to live my life? Okay, well.
Thanks for bearing with all of that.
I know that that there's just like been a lot on my mind and I feel like I really got something off my chest today, as I almost always feel every time I record an episode.
Um, in the spirit of everything I've talked about today, I wanted to share some of my favorite books that I, I've read through my career.
More specifically books that I read when I was in my education program.
Um, now some of these books are older just as like a.
Disclaimer upfront, and I haven't read them in a very long time.
So like some of them may feel outdated and, you know, I'm not sure.
Like I, I read these 15 years ago and some of these were already 15, 20 years old.
So, um, so taking a grain of salt with them.
Um, first of all, my Master's in education, uh, thesis was all about arts-based learning and arts-based education.
And, um, during the time when I was going to college, uh, to get my master's, it was coming right after, like no Child Left Behind.
And, and the introduction, uh.
Introduction of Common Core and, um, there was a lot of arts-based funding being stripped from schools because they thought it wasn't really showing that it had like an impact.
And so I was trying to make a case of why arts-based learning helps, um.
Children succeed in other areas.
It was, it was a lot about that.
So, and how, including arts based education in things when you're teaching like arts, sciences, non-art based things can actually help, um, students of all learning abilities and students of all different interests, um, grasp onto those things.
But anyway.
So with that in mind, here are some of the books that I devoured while researching my thesis.
So one is, uh, the Language Instinct, how The Mind Creates Language by Stephen Pinker, uh, Proin The Squid by Maryanne Wolf.
That was like a really popular book at the time.
Um, it's all about kind of linguistics and the arts and the creation of the Mind by Elliot Eisner.
Education, our education and human development by Howard Gardner.
And then, um, another one that I love, love, love, love, loved.
Um, there's room for me here by Janet Allen and Kyle Gonzalez.
I've listened to this book probably dozens of times.
It's about creating.
Uh, literacy workshops in middle school grades and getting kids who were, um, basically illiterate, excited about reading and improving their reading and writing skills and, um, they were so disinterested in the beginning and how she kind of.
The different tools she used.
And some of it is like, not even just like the teaching tools, but it's a lot about like being empathetic and kind of understanding where your, the kids in your classroom are, are coming from and what they, what they're interested in and what they need.
But also like setting up the environment.
Um.
Making, honestly, like, I feel like part of what the work that she did was that she created, she made, she didn't just make reading feel fun and, and literacy feel fun.
She made it feel, um, I.
Like special, like she was like, she was all about how you can like make there.
I distinctly remember her talking about, um, setting up like your reading corner with like intention and um, and things like that.
And like everyone could be comfortable and, um.
And, and stuff like that.
So kind of like turning it into a moment, um, and like an experience.
So it was like, I feel like that was like a little bit ahead of, ahead of the times.
You know, I think that came out like in the nineties or maybe like the early two thousands.
So I think it, I feel like it was like kind of ahead of its time for when it was published.
Um.
And you know what's crazy? A few years ago when I was moving from Southern New Hampshire back up to the White Mountains, I had to downsize my personal library and I got rid of so many of these books because I thought, I don't need them.
I'm not teaching.
I'm not in arts education anymore.
I don't need them.
And now I'm thinking about them and I just wanna read them again.
Ugh.
Boy, I can't even imagine how much money I spend on all these books and how much they probably would cost me now to replace that.
Yikes.
Um, anyway, these were all foundational to my thesis work, and if you're interested in linguistics, development, arts and education, then you'll probably love these too.
So that's just a really quick recommendation corner to wrap this up.
Thanks again for listening.
Um, as always, find me on Instagram.
I also started a TikTok account.
Me on Instagram and TikTok at things.
See you back here in a couple of weeks.
Bye.