I Almost Walked Away from Marketing. Here's What Changed My Mind.
There have been times in my marketing career when I questioned my gift so much that I considered leaving marketing altogether.
Not because I wasn’t good at what I do, but because I didn’t feel like I fit into how marketing and strategy were supposed to look. I didn’t follow the same playbooks, and I didn’t approach conversations the same way. For a while, I thought that meant I needed to adjust.
A few years ago, I joined the first cohort of the Category Design Academy, and that experience changed the trajectory of my business. Not because it gave me a better process, but because it challenged how I was thinking. It pushed me to question what is accepted by the masses and to trust that thinking differently was not a weakness; it was the value.
What I have come to understand is that my strength is not just in building strategy. It’s in how I work with people.
I create a space where business owners feel safe and know their honesty and vulnerability will help them achieve their business’ potential. That is why we go well beyond surface-level honesty. We get to the true truth about what is not working, what they actually want, and what feels off in their business, even if they cannot fully explain it yet.
There are moments in these conversations where things slow down and something real comes up. The answer is not immediate, and it is not always comfortable. That is usually the moment most people move past. But I am not most people. I stay there, in the uncomfortable, and guide my clients through it, because that is where the clarity is.
I have joked before that it feels like business therapy or marketing therapy, but what it really is, is getting to the root of things. Understanding the problem they actually solve, what they believe in, who they want to serve and will go all in for, and what fulfills them. That becomes the foundation.
And when that foundation is clear, everything else starts to align. The message becomes easier to articulate, the strategy becomes more focused, and the right people start to recognize themselves in the business.
If I had not been pushed to question everything I thought I needed to be, I don’t think I would do this work the way I do today. And I don’t think my clients would get the same results in the same shortened time frame.
This work requires a level of honesty that can feel uncomfortable, but it is also what makes the difference.
So mahalo to the Category Pirates, Eddie Yoon, Christopher Lochhead, and Bri Clark for sharing so much knowledge and encouragement to be different, to think about thinking, and helping me see just how legendary I can be. When you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. Entrepreneurship has its challenges for sure, and in my 8 years of business, I love going to work every single day.
