00:05When I think about what I was supposed to be doing, like when I was 17 and I had
00:10like a plan, because you have a plan at 17, I'm going to go to Howard, I'm going to become
00:15a doctor,
00:15if not I'm going to be a PA so I can still work in medicine and then I'm going to
00:19marry this
00:20amazing guy who kind of looks like a cross between Denzel Washington and Kadeem Hardison.
00:27I thought he was so cute.
00:29When I think back at it, I laugh at my plan and I'm very, very grateful for that failure.
00:43So what fail with like time and perspective now is funny, but at the moment was the end
00:50of the world.
00:51Oh, I got fired from my first job ever.
00:54Okay, give me.
00:57Did you pour a cup of coffee on your boss?
00:59No, no, you know what, let me not say that because he was actually a really nice guy.
01:03I think that he saw in me that I was not meant to be there.
01:08I had just graduated from Howard, I knew I was going to design books, I was going to be this
01:16amazing designer for Rizzoli, Artashan and design these creative, you know, really, really beautiful
01:23coffee table books, but first I had to like make money.
01:25And so I got a job at Foreign Policy magazine and I was a junior designer, I think.
01:31And I was horrible at it.
01:33It wasn't the fact that I was a bad designer.
01:34I was doing what I like to do, but not in the industry that I was meant to do it
01:38in.
01:38And that was manifesting in the fact that I was doing so many different things at night.
01:42Like I was freelancing, I was doing album covers, I was doing all this stuff.
01:45And so by the time you come into work and you have to like design a 500 page article on
01:51trade
01:53tariffs in Venezuela or something, you're just kind of like phoning it in.
01:57And I'm competitive.
01:59And so when he sat me down and was basically like, you know, this isn't working, I felt
02:03like the hugest failure, I remember going home and I told my mom that I got let go and
02:10she was just like, what were you going to do next?
02:14You could sit here and you could cry or you could think about what you're going to be doing
02:18next.
02:19I think six months later, I was in New York.
02:21It was probably one of the most benevolent failures of my life.
02:30You know, failure, we just have this idea that it has to be this bad thing.
02:35No, no, no.
02:37You know, working as a creative director in advertising, our job revolves around failure.
02:44As a creative, when you put your soul into your ideas and so you present them to the world
02:49and someone's kind of like, yeah, that's bullshit.
02:51You know, it's like a little part of you dies, especially when you're younger and you go
02:54through that and it's kind of like, oh, all those little, little failures that happen
02:59and they happen every day.
03:01They make you who you are.
03:02They teach you lessons about how you present yourself to the world, what your creative point
03:07of view is.
03:08The thing with failure is it's hard and we've kind of, I think women especially, and I don't
03:15mean to sell men short, but we've bought this either Instagram or Disney or Pinterest or
03:21LinkedIn.
03:21Like whoever you want to blame for what we've been sold is like what we think our lives are
03:27going to be like.
03:27Yeah.
03:28Like I should have maybe two kids by now.
03:32I was going to say, how many babies?
03:33I should be living in New Orleans.
03:35I should be driving.
03:36What did I want to drive back in a BMW?
03:41It's kind of like the most unfair thing we do to ourselves, but we bake it like with
03:48young girls.
03:48We bake it in fantasy.
03:49When I grow up, I'm going to be doing this, this, this, this, and this.
03:52The middle-aged woman in me now is kind of like, no, don't say you're going to do that.
03:57Like don't be like me, like just go play, just do something amazing, but just do one
04:03thing.
04:03You can do one thing right now and then figure out the rest.
04:06But no, you don't try to be a princess, a lawyer, a rocket and a mommy and like, just
04:11don't put that pressure on yourself right now.
04:13We manifest this fantasy into a reality and it's really kind of fucked up.
04:22You can be this amazing aspirational person and still have so many failures.
04:27Yeah.
04:28Like when I look back at my life and I'm kind of like, yo, if I didn't miss out on
04:31this
04:31opportunity or if I didn't ultimately suck at this, if I didn't, you know, if this didn't
04:38happen, this didn't happen, this didn't happen, where would I be right now?
04:42I'm sure that would be just as equally amazing.
04:44Right.
04:46But where I am also was based in the failures that I was trying to do too much.
04:52I was either trying to be someone that I wasn't.
04:54Right.
04:55I was trying to be everything to everybody.
05:03I think the number one lesson that I've learned is that your failures determine your future.
05:10I think that's the way to like, just wrap everything up that when I look at failure,
05:14I'm like, if I hadn't failed in so many different ways, I wouldn't be living the life that I
05:18live right now.
05:19I also know that it's not final.
05:21That's been a hard lesson to learn, but like failure is not final.
05:24Like you may think it's the end of the world, but think about when you were a teenager and
05:28it was the end of the world when something was happening.
05:31And then you look back 20 years later, like what the hell, you know, and that you have
05:37to love it.
05:38If you don't, it's going to eat you alive.
