Origin Story
We are not our origin story.
Where you begin does not block the road to where you're going.
Sure, you can expend energy looking backward, lamenting what was, the questionable decisions that were made by other people that were then handed to you to sort out, etc etc.
But what's the point in shaking a fist at the rearview mirror when you're not going that way?
How would it feel, instead, to keep your eyes forward, to see before you and around you, to steer the wheel towards progress?
Spoiler alert: that road goes uphill. Change hurts. Muscles get sore before they get strong. And you know what? It's worth every minute.
Because the only time it's worth looking back is to see how far you've come.
Here's a peek at how the VC who exists today came to be VC in the first place:
Almost fifteen years ago, a teensy brokerage franchise hired me as a part-time Graphic Designer. They had one brick-and-mortar in Miami where they crammed 7 staff members, all women, into an office that was no bigger than my son’s bedroom is today.
They hired some "big shot" to be their Marketing Consultant. He brought commensurately big ideas to the table, dropped them, and essentially said good luck. Senior Leadership wouldn't stop ogling over his genius.
And I was like, okay, but who's picking these things up and taking them to the finish line? They don't exist yet.
I looked around. They were all waiting for the work to handle itself, shrugging. Stars in their eyes.
That's when I realized I could do it. So I raised my own hand. I said, "I'll take this." And they said okay, go ahead. I kept taking things, figuring things out.
And for a long time, that guy got a lot of the credit. And I let that be what it was, because something told me I was taking the right steps.
Between then and now there was a lot of crap, failures, typos, tears, makegoods, late night fire-drill Request for Proposals (RFPs), head-banging, disappointment in underwhelming managers, overworking, moonlighting for agents to make ends meet because I was severely underpaid for a very very long time, and so on.
Those years were formative. They made me realize what I could do and, by way of STARK comparison, the kind of leader I wanted to be. Once, when I was coming back from a vacation to Montauk, picturing going back into work, taking a lot of crap from people, redesigning entire layouts for a 72-page listing catalog the day it was due to the printer because my CEO decided that morning she just didn't like it, it didn't work, I cried. I cried real hard. I couldn't see where any of it was going.
I thought I was done with real estate.
How very little I knew.
Looking back, I wouldn't change a single second of it. Even that time my bosses tried to stiff me out of a bonus I'd earned twofold for inventing an interactive iPad listing presentation that got them national recognition, something I taught myself to do in an entirely new medium in a single quarter. Even that time they didn't let me say goodbye to my beloved coworkers when I finally gave them my two weeks' notice.
All of it brought me to Compass in 2015, where I got to build the Marketing Squad of a lifetime, all of whom remain in my life in one form or another even as that chapter closed. I used to call them my Horcruxes, except I could keep splitting my soul into 40 pieces from a place of love and not be any lesser for it.
My origin story helped me realize the kind of leader I wanted to be. I wanted to build a safe space for constant growth, support, challenge, trust, mutual respect, and inspiration. For 7.5 years, I walked to my desk every morning and hoped to be the kind of leader my squad deserved.
And if I was ever not doing that, they were bold enough to let me know. Even when it was awkward. I asked them to.
Focus on outcome over ego, again and again, and everything will sort itself out.
Know that there’s a place where you can be seen and valued. And also know that, when you find it, there will be people there who love you, who will reach back to pull you to your feet, and who will not let you off the hook when they know you are capable of stretching further.
Believe in you. I do.
And if your origin story hasn’t yet brought you to this place, let’s talk about how we can build it for you and your team together.
Spoiler alert: it will be hard, but if it were easy, it wouldn’t be fun.
