BrittanyMakes

You guys! I quit! I officially quit my job as a corporate controller and holy hell, I never thought this day would come. Last Thursday was my official last day working as a controller for a fintech company in San Francisco, and I’m not sad about it one bit. Today is the first day I am 100% creative, 100% entrepreneur, 100% FREE!

I have come so far these last few years, and I’ll be honest, it took me a long time to be able to replace a decent % of my income through this blog/shop/design side hustle I created for myself. Every day I pushed forward because I believed I could find this freedom and do what I love for a living, and every day I knew the odds were against me but I didn’t give up!

I often get asked, if I was always so creative and entrepreneurial, why did I choose accounting as my career? Well, when I was in college it seemed impossible to have a successful career being “creative”. I went the conservative route and chose a career path I knew would provide me with a solid and predictable foundation and salary. All companies need accountants, right?!  I had significant student loans that I needed to pay off and didn’t have the luxury to dabble in the creative side as a career path. Not to mention, I graduated college a year before the economy tanked. I held onto my accountant path with clenched fists out of fear!

While I don’t regret the skills and experience I’ve gained over the last 12 years, I do regret not believing that I could be successful doing what I actually loved to do.  It took me about 5 years of being an accountant to realize it wasn’t for me, and another 7 to finally make the change!  My first few years of being an accountant, my creative juices were being squashed by the corporate cubical culture and cyclical nature of financial reporting. in 2011 I began searching for a new outlet and decided to start a blog, on a whim, with no real idea on where it would take me. I needed an outlet to be creative, and the blog became exactly that!  The blog then transformed into a home renovation journal and a place I shared everything I enjoy about interiors. A few years later I started the shop, and have since been juggling the shop, blog, babies, family, house, commute, corporate job… the list goes on and it boy it’s been a lot to juggle!

I’m not going to lie, I did really well as an accountant. I am good at it. I am good with numbers, spreadsheets are one of my love languages, but along with the career being a creative black hole, being the workhorse and watching my (male) bosses receive all the credit and dictate my career trajectory was something that I really became resentful about. I hit the glass ceiling more than once and it really weighed heavily on me. Being a woman in corporate finance is tough, and while we live in an era where women are able to achieve more and are clearly fighting for more, I realized a few years ago I would never be taken seriously enough, never have a voice loud enough compared to my male counterparts. So not only was the career choice not for me, it wasn’t a rewarding one to be in either.

Getting to TODAY, this day, 12/4/18, has been a long and exhausting journey, but I did it! I did it! I DID IT!  I’m ready to thrive, to grow, to be my own boss, and to be 100% creative. Thank you to everyone who’s been with me to this point in my weird journey, and I hope you stick around because I am excited for what this new chapter will bring!

(All photos by Madison Holmlund for my Glitter Guide home tour)