Whenever I am sitting down to start writing at work, I always start with a simple question:
Why?
Why would a busy CEO or CMO want to take the time to read this article or ebook?
Why should it matter to them?
Why does it matter to us?
This same question made perfect sense as the basis for this first blog post for the new journey I’m embarking on.
[Yes, that sounds cheesy as shit, but it can’t be helped!]
So why am I doing this?
Well last year, I had the year from hell. Before you think I’m being overdramatic, let me assure you that it was likely worse than you might think.
In the span of about 6 months, I lost my grandfather, my husband was hospitalized for three weeks, my work situation soured drastically, and our only car died.
We blew through our savings paying off the medical bills, so times were tight.
Things got so bad after my work situation ended (which is too long and sordid to go into now), and since my husband was unable to work, that we went onto food stamps.
Yeah. I said it.
This law school graduate, married to a master’s graduate, ended up needing food stamps to get by.
And you know what? It was probably one of the best things that could have ever happened to me.
Why?
Because I hit bottom. Actually, I crashed into the bottom.
Not only was the life I had planned with my husband changing (long story short – he withdrew from medical school to pursue a different path), but I was hustling to try and make ends meet and applying to jobs for 6-8 hours a day.
After applying to almost 2000 jobs, going on close to 200 interviews, I finally landed my dream position.
We moved to the Boston area and are seriously loving our lives right now.
But we never would have ended up here if I hadn’t hit bottom.
It was failing completely (at least that’s how I saw it) and being forced to go on public assistance that made me realize – it’s actually ok to fail.
The world doesn’t end. Life doesn’t stop. And there are actually a lot of people like me who need food stamps to make ends meet. And that’s all ok.
I grew so much from that moment, that I am positive that it helped me land my current job.
It gave me the confidence to go after positions that I loved, regardless of whether I met all of their qualifications. (Case in point? The position I have now that said it required a minimum of 5 years agency experience in PR or marketing. . . which I did not possess.)
It gave me the confidence to present myself as MYSELF. Not who I thought I should be. Not the overachiever and perfectionist who I had been trying to live up to my entire life. Just me.
So if being pushed so completely out of my comfort zone landed me my dream job at an amazing company, I wondered what would happen if I kept doing it.
That is what led me to ask friends and family to give me challenges to complete before my 30th birthday.
A vast number of women look at turning 30 as this thing to be dreaded. We all expect to have our shit together by 30, and none of us do.
I wanted a reason to take on a wide variety of challenges to force myself to get out there and try everything I hadn’t done before.
And there you have it. That’s the why behind this entire blog.
I hope you’ll join me as I tackle these challenges and share in the craziness.
Always,
Amanda
P.S. You can check out all of the challenges here.