I missed my calling.

When people ask me what drew me to a marketing career, I honestly couldn’t tell them. Truth is, I always imagined I’d end up an academic. When it was time to explore majors in college, my eye instinctively gravitated towards the arts. I imagined diving deep into literature, discovering new themes within texts already explored, or learning more about art and what drove humans to create some of the greatest works known to us, from the start of civilization to now.

I even indulged the idea of exploring the world of the Classics – wanting to gain a stronger understanding of the language and philosophies that shaped the foundations modern civilizations are built on today. With all these interests, I imagined toiling the hours away deep in thought over big ideas and questions in the corner of a cozy library, coffee in hand, and my attention deep in research, attempting to answer them all and shape these ideas into a paper or book, forever fulfilled by the achievement of gaining new knowledge.

This might have romanticized my understanding of what a life in academia would bring, but it still felt magical then and still does now.

But something shifted. I decided to go the more practical route with marketing – an ever-evolving industry, yet it still doesn’t quite satisfy my deeper intellectual cravings. To soothe this hunger, I began my journey of lifelong learning, taking topics of interest and building my own curriculum around them in the hopes of starting off small and allowing my research and learning to evolve on its own. I wanted to answer the big questions that would creep into my mind, refusing to leave me to rest. After absorbing all of this knowledge, it occurred to me – who would I share this with?

And that’s what brought me here to Substack.

For too long have I allowed the ideas in my thought garden to go unattended, hidden. Creating this space will help me structure findings from my learning pursuits but also provide a creative outlet to explore the ideas, making connections and further expanding the map that continues to develop within my mind.

Truthfully, I’m terrified. I’ve always felt I have too many ideas and worry about finding ways to fit them all here. I worry my ideas are too radical, too silly, too obvious. Even writing this essay, I’m questioning every word, every sentence, every punctuation.

The negative self-talk that remains persistent:

What if my content is terrible?

What if I’m not as interesting or as creative as I think I am?

What if my content provides no value to anyone?

What if I sound like an idiot?

Despite this, I’m jumping in headfirst into the creative unknown.

I don’t have an advanced degree in many of the topics I want to discuss. But I am proud to declare myself a student of ideas and thought daughter with years of experience consuming various forms of media and sitting in total contemplation – or depression, depending on the day. I am more than qualified to organize my ideas and put them on the internet. 🤣

I’ll start this journey with an admission – I don’t know everything. That’s exactly what this space is for – to nurture the curiosity that drives big thinking. I may very well become an expert in the many topics I’ll cover here – I may not. But ultimately, it’ll be a fun journey to document and, hopefully, encourage others to dive into their own learning journeys.

So, if you’re up for it, let’s jump right in.