It's the End of My Ambition & I Feel Fine
On why it's okay to play sweet and small
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should be doing that something. Especially if that something sends you screaming into pillows.
As you know, I appreciate anyone who helps me avoid feeding from trash cans. An old friend pitched me for a CMO opportunity for a VC-backed start-up, which is a fancy way of saying I’d be working 18 hours a day for a percentage of my worth to further some rich guy’s exit strategy. But I set aside my deep skepticism for humanity because the founder was a person of color (we like) and the company, while targeting people who have cash for kombucha, actually benefits people who suffer from addiction.
The founder loved my background and we scheduled a chat. And believe me when I say I cycled through the gamut of human emotions leading up to the chat. I rewound the tape to when I worked for a sociopath founder. There I was was building Keynote decks at 2:30 in the morning, morphing into the kind of large-time asshole that makes my direct reports cry (I’ve since apologized and I’m no longer an asshole, just severe and alienating). And there I go again five years later as head of strategy for an agency working into the evening and blinding reaching for anything in a takeout container.
There I go again putting someone else’s needs and dreams before my own.
I saw myself tethered to an industry that views marketers as nice-to-haves at best and TikTok content creators at its worst. Chatting about influencers and engagement rates and using terms like “game-changing,” “circle back,” “move the needle” until I punched myself in the face.
Suffice it to say, I backed out of the call. Could I do the job? Easy. Breezy. Cover Girl. Could I use the money as I’m a few months away from dereliction? Of course, I could.
I find this happening again and again. Apparently, it’s easier getting a full-time job than it is a project—possibly because people are hiring toddler CMOs and paying them accordingly. I also can’t work for a company that doesn’t play the long game. Everyone’s so deeply concerned with their socials instead of building a company that, I don’t know, will sustain through the dumpster fire that is climate change.
Also, a lot of people are violently incompetent and my poker face is rusty.
More recently, I’m potentially working on a project and one of the other consultants, a marketer, has a hard time accepting that there’s another smart woman in the room. A woman who’s a little younger and not as combative, and I’m watching this woman talk about consumer research, NLP and AI, and bias in data like she knows what she’s talking about.
Spoiler alert: She has no idea what she’s talking about.
But I sit there and sigh and wonder when I can bill for this thing (IS IT HAPPENING ALREADY?!) instead of dealing with someone else’s insecurity because I do not have the time.
Maybe five years ago I would’ve shut this down, but now I’m content to turn the video off on conference calls and roll my eyes into oblivion.
Is it hard to simply want to do good work, be left alone, and support one’s cat without all the telenovela drama? Asking for me.
But then I get a smaller opportunity that gets me excited. It’s writing business case studies for a fancy MBA program. I like it because it’s a longer piece that demands me to linger. It’s a job I can do at home in the deep, dark quiet, and I respect and admire the professor with whom I’d be working.
No drama. No antics. No sobbing on Zoom calls.
For years, I’ve lamented over the fact that I don’t have a five-star career. I’m making far less money than I used to. I feel like a failure, blah, blah, blah. Until it occurred to me that I could have those things but I chose (and still choose) not to. Except for the money part, which is heartbreaking, but digression. I’ve realized that I like the quieter gigs. I like not being the star of the show. I like to be alone doing the work. No longer do I want top billing, the inhumane hours, and the greed that comes along with capitalism and profit at any cost.
We live in a cult of more. We’re not valuable unless we’re producing, famous, and have legions of followers fawning at our feet. We’re not worthy unless we have fancy titles or the trappings of wealth and prestige. We’re not the smartest if we’re not the loudest in the room.
I say swim agains the tide. Play small if you want to. Walk away from that big job if you know you’ll be sobbing in bathroom stalls. Find the work that pays your bills, nourishes you a little, and leaves you time for the rest of your life. You know, the stuff that matters.
Extra Reading Material:
As some of you know, I love AI. I use NLP as core to my brand-building process. But I don’t love its every application and certainly do love the hidden human costs.
“Khloé Kardashian to make a point about the contemporary performance of homemaking is perhaps like trying to understand the French Revolution by watching Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola. Which is to say, not representative.” I enjoyed every word of “Merchandizing the Void.”
“Do you have a journal? A notebook with observations? If the answer is yes, you already have “slender ideas.” In Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith advises her readers: Write down all these slender ideas. It is surprising how often one sentence, jotted in a notebook, leads immediately to a second sentence. A plot can develop as you write notes. Close the notebook and think about it for a few days — and then presto! you’re ready to write a short story." This newsletter is ACES.
This Vanity Fair piece on scammer Caroline Calloway. My response: Why?
Instead of watching the misogynist, poorly-written The Idol, watch its former series director, the very brilliant Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow.
Thank you for writing / sharing this. I've been working for marketing agencies for 20+ years myself and am thinking more and more about what's next for me.
I'm grateful for your reference and articles... I hope that I can get involved with some projects and help others the way you have.