What if the defining moment, the moment when you figured out what you want to be known for, and the industry you feel the most sufficient in all came before you can rent a car legally? For myself, that moment came at the young age of 20 years old.
I was in the midst of creating a cosmetic brand for people with gluten allergies, but in all honesty had no passion for wanting to be part of the beauty industry. I was just creating a brand everyone around wanted me to create. Because I have Celiac Disease, people around (including friends, mentors, family, and others) thought it was an open-door opportunity and I wasn’t running with it at full speed. At this point, I was creating and learning about chemicals and ingredients in cosmetic products, which was interesting, but the moment of “this is what I want to be known for” was no where in sight. The more time I spent trying to create this brand, the less confident I felt about myself and my autoimmune disease. I felt like I was building this brand that looked perfect in all aspects on the outside but was leaving me feeling empty.
That wasn’t until I was having a conversation with my parents that my mindset, my attitude, and my confidence shifted. My parents have always been my #1 supporters, so much so that they noticed a negative change in my energy. The spark of entrepreneurship and being the change I wanted to see in the world seemed to weaken. They encouraged me to focus on what I wanted, who I wanted to become, what I was naturally good at; and most importantly; what was going to make me get up and be excited to get to work every day.
They encouraged me to continue with my entrepreneurial goals, but to align my true passions and strengths with it. That conversation, they both had brought up some marketing/social media content I had created for some other businesses. How I understood the content strategies, the SEO/keyword strategies and how they saw creativity and passion behind everything I created within social media. The conversation made me realize I needed a turning point; not to please others, but to please myself.
I decided to step back from the cosmetic brand and focus on learning more about social media, how analytics work, and start building my personal brand on social media. I won’t lie, it was tough. There was criticism, doubt, fear, and more emotions running through my head; but at the end of the day, I knew I had to trust my intuition.
By present day, at 23 years old, I have a social media management agency where I get to let my creativity flow freely, work with clients who understand my vision and allow me to take control of campaigns that will grow revenue and engagement!
If I can pass one lesson on, it would be this. It’s not about creating something that everyone wants you to create or thinks you should create. It’s not about who people think you should be or who they want you to be. It’s about creating something that shows your authentic self. Creating something that you and only you are proud of. It’s about building and creating something that you know this is what I want to be known for.
