📘 #56 on my Bucket List: Have careers in at least 2 completely unrelated fields
Life is too short to have just one career. Or maybe life it too LONG to have just one career?
Recently I stumbled upon a “Bucket List” I wrote when I was still in undergrad at UC (16+ years ago). Here’s the last item on it:
56. Have careers in at least 2 completely unrelated fields
Even back then, when I was majoring in Information Technology, I was already thinking “Yeahhhh I can’t do this forever.”
Actually no, it wasn’t really about that. When I wrote that one I was thinking of how we only get one chance at life. Our time on this planet is short and finite. Why spend all of our work hours on just one thing?
After crashing a Scary Mommy writers room, I went back to work, on my day job at 84.51, but also teaching at UC, running Scary Mommy’s Instagram, running The Glad Stork, and most importantly, planning The Dad!
I was putting in a ton of work long before I had a job there.
We locked in the name. We tapped the Some Spider design team to start putting together brand guidelines and a LOGO.
I was also asked to create a potential editorial content budget and plan. The objective was to set the tone and build the brand to our first 150k followers as quickly as possible. Easy peasy right?
I had managed huge IT and analytics team budgets at GE and 84.51, but an editorial budget? I was winging it.
Paul asked how much content we’d produce per day and how much it would cost per piece. I’d respond, “I’m not sure. I don’t have that experience. What do you guys think based on how things have gone with Scary Mommy?”
I usually thought the lack of a clear answer meant they were pressuring me to come up with my own answer, which would be undoubtedly lower, more scrappy, and more profitable than industry standards, since scrappy is my nature.
But in hindsight, I think it’s far more likely that most people, in most jobs, in most industries, just don’t know. Most people are winging it and trying their best. Nobody has the clear answer.
One of the paths to building an initial audience FAST was (and IS for all you current brand leaders)… acquisition. I led those discussions as well, reaching out to many dad brands you may know and love… How To Be A Dad, Dad and Buried, Classic Dad Moves, more…
All great people, but none the perfect fit for what we were trying to do. If you’re going to acquire a brand, you’re acquiring audience, and you must be super particular about that audience and the brand’s tone, culture, etc. Followers are not commodities to be traded around. Treat that Follow button smash as a truly special and valuable thing.
We were even doing staff planning at this time. Setting up interviews for potential managing editors and preditors (industry term for Producer/Editors… people who can go out and find video, even shoot video, and also edit it all in one go, a video Jack/Jill of all Trades). But more on team formation later.
Towards the end of that summer, I was EXHAUSTED. I was essentially working 5 jobs. And one of them, my day job, had a 1 hour commute each way. Plus, ya know… my two children.
People in my life who knew I was doing all this (not many) thought I was stupid for working on The Dad “for free.” And yes, it was always possible The Dad wouldn’t go through. I was clear about that. It could’ve been cancelled at any time for any reason.
But I didn’t see it as working for free. I was working for my dream job. Doing everything I could to make it happen. There’s no better work than that.
That said, I was getting nervous, or perhaps it’s better to say: I continued to be nervous. (I’m a nervous person.)
I was getting a new boss at 84.51, and she didn’t support the product vision I created with my previous boss. I really and truly believed in the vision, and still do! My new boss and I had a conversation that was basically like this:
Me: “I need a couple developers, a conference room, and a few months and we’ll prove this vision. Who do I need to convince?”
Her: “Me.”
“Well this is what we should do.”
Her: “I don’t agree.”
“Oh. Dang it.”
Her: “What other positions would you like to do at 84.51?”
“Let me think about that. I’ll get back to you in 2 weeks.”
(I was potentially expecting an offer for The Dad in 2 weeks.)
Vinit emailed me and told me that funding was procured for The Dad. Huge news.
My reply: “What else do we need to do to finalize my role so I can give quitting notice and dive in full-time?” I said in an email, among other topics.
He replied to the other topics and not that.
Another email: “So can we lock in my role and get an offer? It's very important to me to make that official.”
He gave me a call. We locked it in and made it official. I got the offer letter the next day.
It was on.
I told my new 84.51 boss that I was moving on. She was so cool and nice about it.
Like most people I told, she was certain I was going back to GE. Hahahaha.
I told her I was leading a new media brand for dads. I asked her if she had heard of Scary Mommy.
Her: “I am a HUUUUGE SCARY MOMMY FAN! Look at this meme my husband literally just sent me.”
“Haha, yeah exactly. That kind of stuff.”
Even then I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t fully dedicated to 84.51 while I was there (I really was), so I didn’t tell her that I made that meme.
Life is too short to have just one career. Or maybe life it too LONG to have just one career? Either way, we only get one life, so take risks, try new things, even if they might not turn out as expected.
Other things on the 16-year-old bucket list that I crushed:
Get married
Have a child
Run in a marathon
Write a book
Get a Masters degree in anything
But just to show you I was an IDIOT college kid like all college kids, here are some absolutely asinine things also on the list:
36. Bet $1,000 on something in Las Vegas and win
37. Drink 21 different kinds of beer in one day
38. Stay up for as long as I can (make it more than 48 hours)
39. Donate money and get something named after me or a tree dedicated to me
40. Touch a kangaroo
[me, being murdered]: “NOO you can’t kill me. I haven’t touched a kangaroo yet!”
1 month later, on a cool October night, I was having dinner and drinks with the Some Spider leadership team in Manhattan. I distinctly remember stepping out of the restaurant to go back to my hotel, walking through a sea of people (all with a permanent scowl, the quintessential NYC RBF), looking up at the mid-town buildings, thinking, “I am an executive at a media company. How did this happen?”
I crossed off #56 on my bucket list.
It's 2:42pm Texas time (only time that matters jk jkjkjkjk or am i), drinking Costco Kombucha and eating lunch finally, over here clapping this and wiping tears (if I wasn't so dehydrated). Another awesome and inspiring post. I wrote inspo-st twice but deleted. Thanks for sharing this journey with us!