You do You. Exactly as You See Fit.

​Last week I was reading an article on the pros and cons of having a full-time business versus having a side hustle. Among the pros of having a side hustle - diversification, peace of mind, and a competitive advantage in your job. Among the pros of having a full-time business? You have faith in your business. Because, by quitting your “you are telling yourself that you know your business idea can and will work.”

​“Fuck that noise!” I thought to myself and slammed the computer shut.

For the past 15 months, I’ve been one of those people with both a job and a business. Though, with 50+ events a month, a leadership team of 20+ and a lease for 2000+ sq. ft., I hardly classify the SheHive as a side-hustle - but it’s not my main income. My main income comes from a Fortune 500 company where I spend a large portion of each week serving as the Chief of Staff for a team of 200+ coaches on three continents that are helping to fundamentally shift the work culture.

I chose to take the job because I realized, about a year after leaving my full-time career, that I missed the work. I didn’t miss where I had been doing it in the past, but I missed being at the center of a large-scale, complex change initiative.I missed being part of a large team day-in and day-out and I missed the certainty of knowing where I would be when and how much I would be paid to be there.

Taking the job fulfilled much of what the SheHive couldn’t. It also alleviated a lot of pressure, freeing me - and the rest of the team at the SheHive. When my ability to follow a wild dream wasn’t so closely tied to my ability to pay my student loans, mortgage and car note, it was infinitely much easier for me to radically experiment and create something completely new.

I believe in my business. I believed in it enough to quit a decades-long career and build it. But it isn’t all I am and I had needs it couldn’t meet.

I share all this not to defend my choices or to debunk a total shit article (okay, not total shit - but largely shit). I share it debunk a myth that we are all one thing or another, but can’t be both. We are employee or an entrepreneur. A all-in mother or a career woman. A sexpot or a feminist. A confident badass or a sniveling wimp. A bleeding heart liberal or a pragmatic realist.

Lovely, I am a hybrid of all of those things and more - usually all in the same day. Sometimes in the same hour.

No one gets to dictate what defines a fulfilling life for you, but you.

I admire the women that leave it all behind to open a life-long dream and never go back to corporate America. Just as I admire the women that live for a steady rise within four corporate walls and - hopefully - above a glass ceiling. And I hella-admire all of you that do both, because it’s hard AF.

You do you, lovely, exactly as you see fit.

Are you living a life that others don’t quite understand - or judge because it isn’t what they think you “should” be doing? I’d love to hear about it! Leave a note below in the comments so we can celebrate the unique badass that is you.