10 years of experience and counting

In 2019 I realized I gathered 10 years of work experience since I finished my first Bachelor’s degree and started working.

During the past 10 years, I’ve been an employee and a freelancer. I worked in start-ups, big companies, from 9 to 6 or remotely and I learned some things about myself, and the world we work in.

I’m one of those who started by fighting a system asking for experience when you were in need of an internship in order to get it.

Some weapons in my pocket: Work & Travel for 2 summers in the States, an ERASMUS internship in Germany, volunteering with AIESEC, starting a blog in 2008. Oh, and what mattered most was that I was active on Twitter before the term influencers was even a thing.

A retweet and some DMs got me my first internship, which, wait for it, was remote!

I learned via Skype calls about Google Analytics, how to make social media calendars and how to build communities. Back then, it wasn’t easy to convince business owners that they need to hire a Social Media Manager (I sometimes think it still is, because HR or the secretary can do it).

But I only used this few steps, because I wanted to see how it can enhance all the other marketing activities. I was and still am all about integration.

I was a DO-er seeking Makers, to gather as many done projects as possible, to have more and more experience.

Projects came to me, and I was lucky enough to be able to choose those that I believed in and where I knew I can make them better.

Life happened while I was busy working.

Now that I finally took the time to reflect upon it, I recognize patterns.

I never wanted to settle for less. Getting comfortable and not having challenges ahead scared me.

So, with every new step out of my comfort zone, I learned:

• to keep learning and always hunt for new ideas, be ahead of changes, after all, I always had to prove that I have the experience to handle tasks

• question motifs and needs in order to find solutions

• to break mental models to insert new perspectives

• to deal with people no matter their background and experience

• to trust my gut

I enjoyed seeing how everything I learned can become obsolete if I immerse in a new culture.

Everything I knew from working in an industry inspired me to search for different perspectives when I had to deal with an unknown field. I learned the hard way that some innovative ideas won’t make it and budgets will run out eventually.

Knowing what personality traces I wasn’t compatible with made me more cautious when meeting new people. Which is very effective considering the time and energy that we won’t consume from each other if we feel it won’t be a match.

I kept in control those impulses that are better off erased before sending an email, but I'm still learning to have more patience.

With 20 I knew I had to start gathering experience and enjoy work while doing it.

With 20 plus 10 years of experience, I still enjoy work, I still call marketing all that I know and love doing because I know how many activities this covers.

I’m still fuelled by the passion to do things better.

And with 30 and a few projects behind me, I felt ready to start a new blog and turn it into a community of like-minded females who somehow became or ended up travellers or expats.

Nice to meet ya!