Proud, not Defeated. Find your accomplishments.

Now that I’ve been writing every morning, (Yes it’s 4:38 AM and not a soul in the parking lot besides me.), it seems like the floodgates have opened. I haven’t thought of what I’ve done over the years, and have added value to my life and made me the person who I am, for what? At this time in my life I’m now a mom with a small child who I am trying to raise and just think in the moment. I really haven’t been working in my past or feeling sad for what I used to be, I just think of now and what’s going to be my future, with a chronic illness that I am managing through diet and exercise.

Before I started meal prepping and prepping snacks that I could have throughout the day I was eating leftover peanut butter and jelly crusts, and anything else that was available to me quickly. I never invested in myself. Well, at least I haven’t done it in recent years. But now that I am able to produce the content for this blog, I remember what are used to be.

It’s all coming back to me now. It’s slow, but waking up again. I’ve made friends at the gym who I talk to, and have even started a club for women at the gym who inspire me every day.  When I am talking to these women, I need some substance, to make me feel important, and not just a stay at home mom.  I’ve made it a point to look in my past and share bits and pieces about myself along the way.

When just thinking about the things I used to do, I think about the metal picture, the book I wrote, the podcasting, the blogging, the video blogging just came back to me yesterday. I was a Vlogger.

Because the last part of my journey was involved as a marketing manager for a tradeshow exhibit company, that’s what I pretty much remembered. The social media and online marketing that I once did. I forgot about the photography, the video call that I had, the content that I repurposed to become other things. With online marketing that’s the beauty. You come up with one idea you produce one thing, and then that idea becomes other things, like podcasts, tweets, social media posts. I really forgot how interconnected it all was.

When I got the job as a social media marketing manager at a treasure exhibit company, which will remain nameless at this time because it was sold to another company that was already in the business.  They are still in operation, and I assume well since the pandemic has quieted down a bit and the truck show industry is back again.

Because I really wanted to change my career towards the end, because I was not happy in a small Office, not far from home, but this was not enough for me, the things that really used to excite me for getting up out of my chair to take photographs of these huge tradeshow exhibits, and create a catalog. It was a very weak website and I needed to build it up to effectively market it, and produce all the social media Content and make people excited.  It’s been a while since I’ve opened that can of worms and remembered what I had done at another time in my journey. I had MS, but walk with a cane at that time, and people knew I had MS.  It wasn’t some thing I was embarrassed about, those days were over.

So towards the end of my career in that role, I started podcasting, making videos, and I took a course on how to write a bestseller in a weekend.  I couldn’t believe this was possible but it was moneyback guarantee, so of course I had to dig in.

It was true. I took a topic that was I very passionate about, Smart phone photography, and followed all of the steps, showed up to class virtually, participated like crazy, and even won a free kindle for my participation.

I forgot all about this until I had to think about what I did to explain it to somebody if they ever asked. Like, how did you write that book, how did it become a bestseller? What does that even mean?

This was all before I became pregnant and had a kid, but I knew that soon that time would come.

So what the time I was podcasting, I had a video channel on YouTube that I would re-purposed the videos that I would make to become blog posts on my Say WOW Marketing Blog, (Say wow marketing was my consulting business that I had on the side and helped people with small businesses dip into social media. I even helped a restaurant get a Zagat award.  this was especially because of my food photography, and knowledge of social media, press and PR that kept the restaurant on the radar and pause the award.  See what I mean? I opened up a can of worms.)

So because what I did was so interconnected I now have opened up a lot of possibilities to share myself with you.

With this post today, I will share with you my YouTube channel that you can look up on YouTube and see the videos that I re-purposed to be blog posts, or vlog posts, I will share an image of the book now still on Amazon, where it became a best seller in under a week.

So now I hope to share the same content, not to make a name for myself to make business on. I want to share my self because I am doing so many things that I never thought possible at this stage in my life, with a chronic illness that I am managing, that I thought would be the end of me. The truth is, it is just the beginning.