I haven’t been writing as much these past few months, but as 2019 (and this decade!) came to a close, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the past 12 months, look ahead to 2020, and share it all with you!
Last year I learned how to be honest with myself and made some big life changes (like quitting my corporate job and debuting as a professional dancer). This year, I leaned into my full self and got even clearer (and more vocal) about who I am and what I want. This skill set feels so much stronger than it did last January and I’m proud of myself for continuing to do the work to show up for myself and create the life and relationships I truly want. Because of this, I feel like 2019 was by far my happiest, most fulfilling year! Some of the most magical moments included:
2019 Highlights
- Winning the Rising Star division at the World Salsa Summit (and competing at the professional level for the first time)!
- Celebrating the marriages of two of my best friends from college in Providence and Miami, my cousin’s bat mitzvah, my aunt’s 70th, and my friend’s 34th! Two of my closest friends in New York also welcomed their first baby into the world and several friends made big, positive changes in their professional lives!
- Starting my own career coaching and marketing consulting business.
- Educating more than a hundred entrepreneurs about brand storytelling at the biggest marketing and business development conference for dance studio owners in the country
- Landing a feature in Business Insider!
- Inspiring women to follow their hearts in their professional lives
- Investing in myself -– I joined a coworking and community space called the Wing and an incredible women’s professional/community group called Dreams + Doers. I also started working with an intuitive coach, strength coach, physical therapist and making it a priority to take care of my body.
- Shooting a music video!
- Experiencing an intimate romantic connection I hadn’t felt in a long time.
- Throwing several successful GoDeeper dance workshops.
- Learning how I experience anxiety and finding ways to recognize and manage it (this has been huge for me!!).
- Decluttering my life with Marie Kondo’s #KonMari method (which really was life-changing for me).
- Connecting with so many of you through this blog and social media! Thanks so much for following along and taking the time to reach out and share feedback and updates with me. I love getting your messages and try my best to respond to each and every one.
Work and Professional Life
I’ve talked about this before, but when I let my corporate marketing job a year and a half ago I really didn’t know I was going to start my own career coaching and marketing strategy business. At the time, all I knew was that my dream job was no longer my dream job and I needed to make a change. I felt really burnt out and knew I needed some space to re-connect with myself and re-discover the type of professional work that really fuels my soul, so I saved as much money as possible, cut back on expenses, and took a few months “off” to focus on dance and writing. (I put “off” in quotes because I ended up babysitting a few times a week and picking up a few freelance projects, so I didn’t have as much free time as I initially thought I would. But it was still a break in many ways).
During that break, I reached out to lots of people I thought had interesting professional paths and asked for informational interviews. This was immensely helpful (it’s now one of the first things I help my coaching clients do) and helped me gain a lot of clarity around what I didn’t want to do (mainly go into the agency world). It also gave me valuable insight into how others had successfully transitioned from corporate roles into freelance roles, and in some cases, back again into the corporate world (because you never know where one opportunity might lead you, and any decision you make is never finite).
For a few months, I really thought I wanted to be a staff writer for a lifestyle or wellness publication, and then more briefly a content director for a sex toy company. Finally, in March of 2019, I had a big Ah-Ha! moment. While browsing Indeed job posts one night, I realized what I really wanted to do was start my own business. That’s when I decided to stop the job search and instead begin to build my own.
It’s taken me a good six months to really narrow in on the type of work and services I want to offer and how to use my expertise and experience to best serve my clients. Part of the reason I stopped writing in November and December was to focus on finding clarity. I feel really good about where I landed with everything and am excited to update my website and overall online presence to reflect this new direction!
Biggest Lesson:
When it comes to your career, follow your heart. Your gut, your instinct, that voice inside your head that shouts at the top of its lungs when you’re trying to fall asleep at night. Whatever you call it, follow it.
And give yourself permission to do the damn thing you’ve spent most of your life avoiding because other people, society, etc. made you feel like it wasn’t good enough.
Then, when you finally start to do just that and someone gives you well-meaning but fear-based advice (as in “you can really only make money by doing that in this way”) IGNORE THEM.
A few weeks after my Ah-Ha! moment in March, I ran into a connection I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. He mentioned he’d been reading my newsletter and asked me about the work I was currently pursuing. Excitedly, I told him how I wanted to use my marketing and branding experience to help female entrepreneurs, business owners, and freelancers clarify their message and grow their ventures. In response, he told me that if I wanted to make money consulting, I really needed to pursue working with Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies.
His comment really stuck with me––a lot more than I was aware of until this November when I decided I needed to reflect on the kind of professional work I wanted to bring with me into 2020. Without realizing it, after I ran into him I started saying yes to (and looking for) opportunities that fell more in line with his advice than what I knew I really wanted to do.
The thing is, all the intentional reflection I’ve done these past eight weeks has led me back to almost exactly where I was last March–– I still really enjoy building deep relationships with the people I work with, working with clients one-on-one, teaching and educating people about key business and marketing concepts, helping teams and individuals bring their lives to life, and inspiring people to believe in themselves and their ideas. And I still want to primarily work with women.
The only thing that changed is that through informal, advice-giving conversations with former colleagues, I’ve learned the same skill sets that make me a great marketer and brand expert––namely bringing order to a lot of information, seeing the big picture, and using data and empathy to find creative solutions to business challenges–– also make me a great career and clarity coach, and I’ve started offering those services in addition to the brand and marketing consulting I do.
I wish I had ignored his comment, not because it came from a bad place (it didn’t), but because his advice was based only on his personal experience, which has been limited to consulting for those kinds of Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies he recommended. When trying to categorize and understand my professional goals, his brain (understandably went to his own experience. In reality, his advice had nothing to do with me or my business and everything to do with him and his experience.
If you are on any kind of path that is different from what people around you are doing, especially one that involves entrepreneurship, it’s essential to get really clear about what you want and why you want it. The more clarity you have, the more quickly you’ll be able to filter out these external ideas, voices, and comments. Because as long as you clearly communicate the value you or your product brings, you can make good money doing anything you love. But first, you have to believe in yourself and what it is you bring to the table.
One of the other big tips I give my clients is that at the beginning of any kind of professional journey there is going to be some trial-and-error. Marketers call this testing and they like to use data to draw conclusions and make decisions. You can do this too and it’s super helpful. Keep a Learned Lessons document and keep track of the kinds of professional work, environments you do and do not enjoy. If you take on a new, or different kind of project, notice where resistance comes up and write it down. Are you procrastinating? Feeling a lot of anxiety around it? If so those are indicators (i.e. DATA!!!) that it’s not the right fit. Dig into why it isn’t the right fit. Do the same things for projects and work that feel natural and easy. And then do more of the things that feel easy (and fun!) to do.
Looking Ahead to 2020:
I am so excited to grow my career coaching and marketing consulting business and help others build professional and personal careers they truly love. If you (or someone you know) is interested in learning more about working with me, you can email me at [email protected] for more info. I offer free introductory consults to see if working together is the right fit.
I also want to do more speaking engagements and workshops for teams and individuals this year, so if you or someone you know is looking for inspiring speakers or action-oriented professional development workshops, I’d love an introduction!
Finally, as my coaching and consulting business grows, I’ve realized there are a lot of topics I want to write about (and resources I want to create!) about business, marketing, and career topics that don’t really fit into this dance and lifestyle blog. But I love this little corner of the internet and I’m not ready to say goodbye to it just yet––so stay tuned to see how this space develops and changes in 2020 (and get on the list to receive my best brand and entrepreneurial tips here).
Dance!
This year was filled with so. many. incredible. dance things!!! Some of my favorite experiences:
- Teaching my first performance class! I absolutely loved working with this group of women and seeing them improve and grow so much over the three-ish months we spent together.
- Auditioning as a dancer for several different movie/theatre productions in New York (something I NEVER thought I’d do!).
- Shooting a music video, GoGo dancing, choreographing and performing two pro-am routines (as the pro!)
- Winning the 2019 Rising Star Champions at the World Salsa Summit with Hunter Houde. (I know I mentioned it above, but this was a big moment for me =)
- Teaching and performing at different congresses and Salsa events around the United States and Canada including Calgary, Connecticut, Montreal, New York, Providence, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. (I have to say that out of all our trips this year, going to Providence and D.C. definitely were particularly special! A huge thank you to everyone who welcomed us and came out for our shows and workshops. We felt so loved!).
I’ve also grown as a dancer and am physically stronger than I was this time last year. I have better control over my movements and more confidence in myself and my dance abilities.
Among all the wonderful dance things, there were definitely some tough moments, lots of tears, and one particularly challenging rehearsal that still makes me cringe. I feel like my rehearsals could have been more productive and that’s something I want to change in 2020.
Biggest Lesson:
Never forget how much you love to dance.
When I’m very much immersed in my dance life, I feel somewhat (or very) disconnected from the rest of my life. When that period of intense immersion ends, sometimes the contrast makes me forget how much I love to dance. It’s as if I feel like I have to have it all (i.e. only dance and only focus on growing my dance career) or nothing at all. But dance is an integral part of who I am. So too is being a coach and an entrepreneur, and building a business outside of the dance world I love so much. I want to, and can, do both.
Looking Ahead to 2020:
I continue to feel so incredibly grateful for the role dance plays in my life. It’s been instrumental to my personal growth, helped me build an emotional and physical connection with myself, feel comfortable in my own skin, and practice connecting with others. It provides me with opportunities to express and explore myself creatively, sensually, physically, and emotionally. It also brings me so much joy!
Dance has also given me a definition for what community means, and what it’s like to be part of a community, something I never had and definitely shied away from as a teenager and young adult. As I get older, I realize more and more how important community is, how much it takes a village to do anything, as well as how much your community shapes who we and who we want to be.
This year, a lot of my dance friends were focused on landing agents and doing creative work outside of the Salsa/Bachata/Latin dance world (movies, theater productions, music videos, etc.). I have thought a lot about if this is something I want to pursue as well. I’ve done a lot of deep digging to see if it’s something I still have fear and limiting beliefs around (and thus am not giving myself permission to go after), and while I want to continue growing as a performer (and auditioning! because there are so many benefits!), this is not my dance dream.
What I love about dance is the joy it brings me (I’ve always derived so much joy from movement!), the immense personal growth opportunities it provides, and the way it opens us up to human connection, and strengthens confidence and belief in our selves. And I love performing, teaching, and social dancing in the Salsa/Bachata/Latin dance world.
I mean if Rhianna calls me up and asks me to dance for her, I’m not going to say no, but I also don’t feel called to dance for Rhianna (or JLo, or Beyonce, or Miley Cyrus) in the way I feel called to encourage others to follow their dreams and inspire them by pursuing my own –- and to show others that it’s possible by continuing to pursue my own.
Some of the things about my dance life I’m looking forward to most in 2020: Taking class more regularly for fun, building strength and fluidity in my movement, teaching more often (I’m doing another performance class in February!), choreographing more, continuing to work on being my full self whenever I perform, and continuing to pursue my goal of winning a professional division at the World Salsa Summit.
A Few Other Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2020…
- Learning to sing! I’ve never been a good singer and always shied away from social activities that involved singing (like hanging out around a campfire or karaoke-ing) because I felt like I couldn’t participate. A few months ago I realized that this is TOTALLY a skill set I can learn and get better at, so I’m going to take voice lessons in 2020.
- Living on my own for the first time and making my space feel like home.
- Getting better at putting my things back where they belong and taking the time to keep them organized. I’ve gotten better at this, but it’s still something I want to improve on in 2020.
- Having more fun! I want to spend more time this year with friends and do more things together. I really enjoy creating and working on my own, but I feel like I didn’t have as much fun this year with friends and loved ones because I felt pressure and anxiety about working for myself. When the weather gets warm I definitely want to spend more time outside and try new activities (I’m thinking about things like gymnastics, pole dancing, trapeze, strawberry picking, baking, cooking, exploring New York, and pottery).
What were your favorite moments and biggest lessons from 2019? What are you looking forward to doing, seeing, or creating in 2020? I’d love to know in the comments below!
with love,Brielle