She has a Career

Beautiful BC 

This week I went on a work trip to Chicago. As always, it’s my pleasure to visit different cities and see different things. When I get away I am always amazed by the different buildings and culture, and at the same time am always reminded how beautiful Vancouver is and how lucky I am to live with mountains and ocean out my backdoor. Chicago is a really nice city, and next time I go back, I’m going to explore more… (by that I mean shopping! ;))

Downtown Chicago

My days in Chicago were jam packed with meetings and activities. My work is one part of my life that makes me feel alive. It’s risky, gives me a sense of purpose, and allows me to express a part of myself that gets suppressed in other areas of my life. I like helping people and companies acquire customers. I just do. I really like it. The only glitch is, as a Mom, I always have and probably always will struggle with work/life balance. I am working on figuring out when I should feel guilt about travel and time invested in work, what is the “right amount” of guilt and when am I just torturing myself? I often feel neglectful. Actually, sometimes I feel downright selfish because I love what I do.

Marketing is so much more than just a job to me, it’s a passion. Understanding humans and what makes them tick breathes life into my soul. Technically figuring out what people are up to, how they are interacting, stalking them (to an extent!), insight into what makes people who they are, and then what motivates people to make an action is my bread and butter. Plus, the geeky side of me that loves data is fully satisfied in this modern world.

My current most fav work outfit
(Banana Republic $170) 

When people ask me how I got to where I am, Sometimes I laugh it off and say, “I got lucky.”  Some of that is true, but mostly, the truth is that it was (and IS!) really hard work. Although I have worked in Marketing for 13 years (yes! I did work full time and school at the same time!), when I got divorced things really kicked into high gear. I had two new needs in my life, one, to provide for Aurora on a single income (I was not making very much money). Two, I needed to re-discover myself. I wanted to bury myself into something that I could focus on, something that I was good at, something that was positive, and something that I was made to do.

For a couple years, I worked 364 days a year. I always took Christmas day off because my bosses did! I worked vacations, weekends and evenings. Yes of course I had moments of burnout, drove my daughter crazy, felt like a bad parent, neglected my friends, but I learned exponentially. I have never worked so hard in my life. It taught me that so much is possible. I take that work ethic with me now, but I have more balance (sometimes! Haha). My partner has been good for that.

My brother, myself and my sister <3

It’s funny, when I look back to high school I was not “smart.” I never felt smart. My grades reflected that I was painfully average. It really was not because I couldn’t “be smart.” It was because I didn’t apply myself. For some reason, I could not muster up the motivation to really do a good job. Part of the reason is that I learn by doing, I’m very hands on, high school learning is not tailored to that. After high school, I was constantly told I was average and in turn expected to be getting average jobs.

It’s funny, I told myself I was average for a long time after that. Then something changed. At one of my early jobs, I had a manager that insisted I was average. But in this situation, everything was telling me that I wasn’t. The data and growth for the company I was at was telling me I wasn’t, my emotions were telling me I wasn’t, the results I was producing were telling me I wasn’t. THEN finally, I told myself, you’re not average, you’re special. The thing I realized in that moment was that, not only am I special but so is everyone else. Mediocrity is a choice. That might sound harsh but it’s not. It’s actually super empowering. We are in control of our lives and can change what we want to. We are never stuck.

So, although at the time, I felt that manager was my roadblock, I realized that she played a very important part in “growing up” (in so many expressions of that phrase) and I am grateful to her for that.

I’m now more happy, confident and capable than I have ever been. There is still a lot of growing a long the way, but that’s what life is about, and I’m excited for it!

Thanks for reading!

XX Steph