One Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve

Let me start by saying for pretty much as long as I remember, I’ve kind of hated the celebration side of the New Year. Judgement-free zone: totally cool if you love celebrating, I just prefer celebrating all the other 364 days of the year. But, like many people, I‘ll write down the things I want to accomplish for the year: go to the gym more, take up french again, learn how to cook properly…ten years ago though on this blue moon (apparently according to my tweet from 2010), I had a pretty interesting one (that I found whilst cleaning my mounds of paper out today). The top of the lists was:

“Plan your escape.”

Let me start by saying, I was never held against my will anytime or any place. But my first official job in advertising, was let’s say, a mixed bag of experiences. I was granted autonomy and learned a lot and honestly was around some good people. I had an incredible mentor in one of my very best friends. She taught me things, she watched out for me, she forced me to learn everything about technology because “it was the future and I had to be the best at it.” She made me write trend reports, buy an iPhone and immerse. To this day, it was the most valuable thing anyone has ever forced me to do.

I also experienced some pretty icky things that one does not need to put in an otherwise joyful “new year, new me” post. It was enough for me to keep fighting until my last breath with incredible organizations that I’m now fortunate enough to be affiliated with like TimesUp, The 3% Conference and ADCOLOR. I will continue to fight the bullies and the trolls that followed me even past that time. People who were meant to be the leaders but were in fact the furthest thing from that. But that’s what led me to dramatically (but calmly) write those words: plan your escape.

My escape came four months later. I had very clearly grown out of San Diego (as a strong Obama supporter in a very conservative area — that I had NO IDEA I LIVED IN — I was suddenly a fish out of water). And it was relatively unplanned, outside the fact I knew I was fed up and wasn’t going to take another incident and finally just quit when I was pushed too far. April 29, 2010 if we’re counting. I RT-ed this from W+K (you guys, it was a prophecy) and literally marched into the office and quit. No job. Just a bit of gumption I didn’t know I had.

I didn’t have a job, but I had a community I’d built almost entirely via Twitter. It made me strong. It made me feel less alone, less scared. It honestly kept me going in a lot of those real dark days. These same people are the allies I have today. The people I visit in London, go to concerts with in LA, and hang out with their kiddos and families today. A lot of them don’t totally know how much they did for me at the time, but their kindness, willingness to talk kept me going for a very long time.

And then I did what I always did when in a pickle, I wrote.

I stupidly stopped renewing my domain and lost all that content, but I’m fairly certain it said something like: “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I think this is the right thing to do. Will someone please humor me?” Hat in hand, I just dove in. I was lucky enough to be plucked up by Chiat Day in LA shortly thereafter, and then began the rest of my career and life.

Flash forward this fine decade and here we are.

So what’s changed in this decade? Outside the fact that I escaped successfully.

I still have a tendency to leap, but more cautiously because my leaps effect more people now.

I am far more comfortable with my self. My whole, entire self. The self that was rejected ten years ago, but now is in a place where it can sing (however off-key) it would like to.

I lead with my heart first, that’s been well-tempered by my head over the years.

I am humbled by people who I now am lucky enough to call friends. I have no idea how I lucked out like this.

I am even more humbled by this industry that took me in — weird, plucky, sparkly-dressed, me. And put me on the 40 Under 40 List. And on the stages of conferences that I dreamed of just even attending a decade ago are having me speak.

My Twitter style is spookily similar (time has not changed me that much).

I use my platforms not only for promoting things that my agency and myself accomplish (that is part of taking space, I now accept the importance of it), but also the people I admire so deeply, regardless if I work with them or not. And highlighting the voices I haven’t heard as much and trying to find the spaces for new voices to emerge.

And finally, safe to say, the escape was quite successful.

Thanks, Twitter. And per my very first tweet…