INSIDE CREATIVE CAREERS
You don’t have to work for corporate America to make money - find your path and be yourself!
I was never a great student… I never understood why I had to think a certain way or why I had to know the things they were teaching me throughout school. I have my Bachelor of Arts from a state university so I did the whole school thing but, it wasn’t for me. I know I am an entrepreneur at heart but have never known what to do with that combined with my creativity… My journey hasn’t been as unique as I first thought after talking to so many friends, students, and network in general and I am dead set on helping others going through the same kind of experiences I went through find their path to creative career success!
BABY ME - THE CREATIVE BEGINNING
When I was young, I would produce TV shows for school projects instead of writing a paper. I would force my sisters to put on dance performances and plays any chance I got. I would redesign cereal boxes because I thought I could improve the designs. Looking back, it is so obvious that my life was going in the direction of being an Art Director, Creative Director, Event Producer, Choreographer, etc. however, once I was in the school system, that was all ignored or forgotten because “that doesn’t make money” said my family and the foundation of our education system.
After high school, I knew that I wanted to do something “big” or something creative but I didn’t know what that was. Since I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I couldn’t pose a good argument to my parents to persuade them to support me going to a creative arts school. Back then, had I had more resources for creative career paths, I may have been able to convince my parents of this unconventional path to professional success. Now, I am making no excuses here, my parents were not in creative careers so they had no idea of this industry and how to help steer me on this pursuit.
The short of the next chapter is, I made the college cheerleading team and got extremely sidetracked by the small town “fame” of a PAC 10 cheerleader for several years… After graduating, I was dumped into the world of “you have to get a job to make money”. GREAT. What the hell was I supposed to do then just pick a job?
FIRST “REAL” JOB
That’s exactly what I did… I just picked a job and sucked at it BAD. Being such a good interviewer, I crushed it on an interview with Intel Corporation as a Senior Admin to two global managers… I remember crying in the bathroom on my lunch breaks because I felt so far from who I am and the people around me were so not my tribe. You should have heard the reaction my family had… they were SO excited for me to have landed “such a great position”. I was so torn because I felt like I should have been thrilled but really I was crying to and from work and feeling so far from myself I was going insane. That job didn’t last long before I got let go (thank God). I ended up getting signed as a model for SLU while coaching high school cheerleading and going to school (it literally took me about 8 years to graduate university FYI). As if that wasn’t enough on my plate, I became stir crazy in school - still having no real idea why I was going - and began having informational interviews with photographers and other creatives I was becoming connected with through modeling.
PIVOTAL MOMENT - informational interviews
I became obsessed with figuring out what I wanted to do with my life after college… it was as if I didn’t want to graduate and kept dragging it out until I made this decision. During my informational interviews, one photographer in particular I remember talking with was Zach Ancell. When I asked him how to get a foot in the door of photography (that was the only career path I had been exposed to at that time having been on set as a model for photo shoots and such), he said “photo stylist”. Apparently, there was a huge need for photo stylists in Portland, OR at the time I was asking. That was when I decided I would be a photo stylist… because why not?!
LEARNING MOMENTS
I ended up reaching out to several photo stylists on Linkedin to see if I could do informational interviews with them and learn about what their jobs are because… THIS SHIT IS NOT PUBLISHED ANYWHERE!! One of the first stylists that responded was working out at Nike which is what kicked-off the next 5ish years of my life. I had a LOT of learning moments while I was faking it till I made it and, looking back, I would have done it again because I LOVE me some learning moments. While they feel like failures, there is always something to be learned which is so exciting for me.
NEXT STEPS - podcast time!
Alright so, I have grown out of photo styling and am currently an Account Manager for a photo studio and still not feeling super fulfilled but working on it. I still do informational meetings all the time because the creative industry is SO incognito that I still don’t really know all the career paths out there in the world and I’m already 30-years-old. That said, I am in the process of making a podcast to bring you all these interviews so you can learn from what I am already doing naturally.
Stay tuned as I will be putting show notes on this website once I kick it off :D
I will also be publishing creative career paths on this blog so you can see information on each of these paths and different resources to obtaining those careers if you intend to do-so!
GO CHASE YOUR DREAMS AND NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR CREATIVE CAREER AMBITIONS!
