Lessons Learned from a Career Yet to Come.

I am a runner.  I am a marketer.  I am a sister.  I am a writer.  I am emotional.  I am a blogger.  I am a wife.  I am a daughter.  I am creative.  I am a subordinate.  I am bossy.  I am persistent.  I am a friend.  I am a candidate for motherhood.  I am a designer.  I never knew that with a degree in advertising tucked in my back pocket that I would need to be all of the above to make it in the marketing world.

This story begins with the runner.  I ran my first half-marathon in October 2009. I began the race like I began my career – with a playlist full of songs sure to motivate me to conquer the world.  Conquer the world?  Yes.  Because as I graduated college I did utter the words:  ‘I will save the world, one kidney patient at a time.’

Unfortunately, my headphones were broken and I didn’t hear a single song.  But, like in my career, I decided to listen to all the things I never planned to hear – the runners' shoes hitting the pavement, the pride in the voices of people cheering me on and my gut instinct on whether to pick up the pace or slow it down.

At mile eight, I ran over a bridge and watched leaves fall slowly over a river. I had a moment of clarity where I knew what I wanted in life and how to get it. This feeling was familiar; I remember it from when I graduated college and at varying moments since. Post-college I was managing a graphic design studio in Des Moines, IA and in doing so creating award-winning marketing programs for clients.

Since then I have been part of a marketing team that at its peak – prior to the dear ‘great recession’ – was eight professionals deep.  At its valley?  It was just me.

This clarity – from the leaves falling and the pride felt when you think you are successful at creating world-changing marketing materials and withstanding rightsizing to the utmost – surely meant that I could do more with my skills.  I could run faster.  I could be bigger.  I could go elsewhere?  Literally and figuratively, I fell down only two and a quarter miles later.

The fall felt like those low moments in careers that we all inevitably go through. I slowed down afterwards and had a hard time figuring out how – with a swollen knee and a cut hand – I was going to continue and finish this race with my head held high.   I did.

Well, I finished the half-marathon that is.  As for the full race – my career – it’s still taking shape.  At the end of the 13.1 miles I did not feel like I could turn around and run it again and five years into my career, I feel the same way.  But I think I will.  I’ll run another half-marathon and maybe even the full 26.2 miles someday.

I write this as a lesson to myself and others as we head out to create meaningful careers even when times are increasingly tough.  Great marketing is about finding the truth in what we are communicating and I truly believe marketing is at the core of all we do.

What I’ve learned is that my truth lies somewhere in that intro-mantra.