How Blogging Has Shaped My Career

I am so excited to get to type these words, I am now the Content Manager for ADT.

My blog is what helped get me here.

I started this blog six years ago as a way to look back on where I was. So many times I’ve looked back and been like none of this was ever supposed to happen. But the thing is it was. I was meant to start this blog so that I could develop the friendships that I have, create opportunities and the biggest of all, develop my career path. Oh and one other thing that I can’t share with you yet but I am SO excited about it. But I digress, it’s the career development that I want to talk about.

Many people have asked if I have wanted to go full-time with the blog and I never have. I really love this blog and I have not wanted turn it into my full-time job. So many of my friends have gone full-time, and that is awesome! However, I know myself. I need solid benefits, stability, a consistent paycheck and working with a team to start.

Blogging is really opposite of that. Like completely the opposite. I also really refuse to let my content become a chore and I don’t post when I don’t feel inspired. Nor do I have to take ads on that I don’t like just to pay the bills. I like the freedom that I have to take a step back when it starts to feel like a chore. Yes this is a labor of love but it’s a love I get so much out of. It’s also a labor that can drain my time and money.

I started at Protection 1 as our leadership was taking over ADT, but technically was on the Protection 1 side of things. Obviously with a name like ADT that has been around 140+ years, you keep that which is why I’ve always just said ADT. I joined as a Marketing Specialist to take over a website that was like a blog on steroids that an entire company was going to use. It’s funny because I didn’t really have the experience that was an automatic yes except for the fact that my boss and I both had blogs. She understood what it was like to take something like this seriously and do it well. She saw a spark there.

I had the best interview of my life that day. I went in and said welp, I’m just going to be me. Always, always bet on yourself because that was the best bet I have ever made. I walked down the staircase with my soon-to-be boss and we both knew I would be hearing from her. I started working there a few weeks later.

Since I have been traveling for work I did debate if the blog was going to be something I could keep up. I went down to posting twice a week and now it’s pretty much whenever I can. I just couldn’t let it go. No matter how much I work on creative all day long at work, I still need this outlet. My gut just told me I need to continue learning through the blog and see where this goes.

And now in 2018 I have been promoted to Content Manager. A job that literally in the announcement our CMO sent out referenced this blog as being the training ground for this. A simple blog started as a way to look back has literally been the biggest force in creating space for me in organizations. I work in a corporation that has over 17K employees. Yet I was able to take the thing that I still have to explain what it is to most people and turn it into something that is advancing my career.

I definitely wanted the title of manager (this was my vague-post about that). But having the trust of people to be able to define what this role will be and the changes it will help bring is huge. I am so excited to hire for my team and truly get to create something amazing. I have the right mix of slightly worried, excited and nervous jitters which is pretty much the exact feeling I have when I know something is big and exactly right.

But seriously, this blog I started years ago is how I am now here. Isn’t that crazy? I still have to explain to people that YES blogs are still a thing and NO Instagram is not a blog. My job that I’m entrusted with now is because I believed in keeping this thing going and doing as much as I can for it and with it.

But don’t forget, it wasn’t all roses. I lost my first job out of college. I ended up living a home in my parents basement and experiencing my first ever depression. Blogging wasn’t able to really help me out in these aspects, but it was my outlet. I’m extremely thankful I can have a very visible reminder of what was happening years ago. I am a firm believer in keeping either physical mementos or digital one. You need to remember where you have come from.

Sometimes you don’t know how far you’ve come until you’ve looked back. You have to take the time to stop and take account of what has happened to get you where you are.