How I Quit My Job and Started a Business

Earlier this year, I quit my job. I wanted to find a way to work for myself and came across an opportunity to work as a consultant on a special project in South LA. I’d help nonprofits with branding, online fundraising, and teach them how to use social media to tell their story. My background is in Public Health and I’ve also spent the last 2 years working in various marketing roles, so this new project seemed like the best of both worlds. The only downside to this new project? It was short term. I’d work from March to June, with a possibility of extension to September.

Let me just say that deciding to take this path wasn’t easy. I wanted to work in public health but also wanted to use my creativity and was really struggling to find a role doing both. I worked for three years at a public health nonprofit that I loved but my role there wasn’t fulfilling. In 2017, When I left my job as a Program Director to go work in social media marketing, I know how it looked because people told me so; crazy and random. Why take a job in marketing after getting a Masters degree and working so long to get a career in public health? Wouldn’t I hurt my chances of getting hired with such a varied work history?

My senior quote back in high school was, “Do not follow where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” That’s been my mantra in my career and ultimately my life. And this year, after deciding to quit my marketing job and work as a consultant, I’m creating an opportunity to use my collective experience to do something great. I started my professional website and business as a Nonprofit Branding Consultant and as of October 1, I get to continue working self-employed. I secured another contract, and am continuing to work for myself as a consultant.

So why share all of this? From the beginning, Femme Nouveau has always been about the journey. My greatest hope is to be able to use FMNV as a platform to share my journey, to share my process in an effort to help you with yours. Your journey is important. Sometimes I think we look at someone’s end result and we forget that there were probably a million steps, falls, and sprints in between.

I also took this summer as an opportunity to redefine what I wanted FMNV to be. I think in my haste and in my desire to find my own way, I was moving FMNV forward in a direction that wasn’t really meant to be right now. I want this to be bigger, to include more voices but I think the timing just wasn’t right. I’m still finding my way in my career and in a world where your online persona can conflict with your professional persona, trying to figure out how to define both required me to take a step back.

So, I want to make sure I’m sharing my journey and my creativity to the best of my ability before I move onto making this into something greater. It’s okay to try new things and if it’s not a good fit you can rework it or come up with a new strategy. And that’s OK.

That’s what I like about FMNV. It’s not about where you end up, but your journey to get there.

Have any questions about me or the work I do? Leave a comment below!