There’s a statistic out there that says with the modern work culture, the average Gen-Y professional will change careers four times by age 30.
So here I am on my 4th career. I started out in the fashion industry as a model booker (and man, do I have some stories for another time), recruited creative types in advertising design & tech, and jumped that ship to dabble in research for an IT company when I followed a boyfriend creative calling to New York. And one day in 2009, when I realized that I never, ever wanted to worry about my job security or work for someone else again, I scooped up all my skills and started a company to help aspiring entrepreneurs and creative types build creative businesses, and creative careers.
I have a notebook full of superheros illustrated in ballpoint pen that accompany me wherever I go. My “dream team”, I call them, and when I’m feeling overly due for a shot of creativity, I sketch a new one. I’ve been an artist since I was 5, and now 25 years of experience have produced an expensive diploma from Boston University denoting my art school cred. I love working with creative people, because I am one.
I’ve successfully run someone else’s company, as well as several of my own. And some of the best lessons I’ve learned in life come from jumping head-first into new ventures, balancing work, life, challenges, solutions, excitement, fear, success, failure and everything else that comes along with starting a business. It’s an exciting journey! I’m a card-carrying startup-minded, over-achieving, career shifting gal, your entrepreneurial wing-woman, who understands it first-hand: the challenges, the decision making process, and the personal impact of the transition from one career to another, and especially from employee to entrepreneur.
Something important to understand about career transition, whether you’re changing jobs or changing tax status, is that it’s not necessarily about being great at one thing and bad at another, or indecisive about what you want to do or where you fit in. It’s about being creative, accountable, and writing your own story. With every new role that I took on, I discovered new skills and strengths I possessed that were marketable and potentially transferrable to a number of areas. It takes a lot of self-discovery and confidence in your abilities, and creating new abilities, to start a business. And I believe that’s a major key to getting unstuck in our work lives- understanding the value that we bring to the table for our audience, and knowing how to leverage that to best position ourselves as someone that other people really REALLY want to work with.
What Else?
- Right-Brain Influences: Roy Lichtenstein, Max Beckman, David Sedaris, Marvel Comics
- Left-Brain Influences: Dale Carnegie, Blake Mycoskie, Michael Port, Michael Gerber
- Entrepreneurial Must-Haves: Confidence, time management, a loose business plan, ability to adapt, creativity.
- Essential Bookshelf: The Right-Brain Business Plan (Jennifer Lee), Start Something That Matters (Blake Mycoskie), How to Stop Worrying & Start Living (Dale Carnegie), The E-Myth Revisited (Michael Gerber)
- Currently Learning: Better HTML, advanced marketing principles, mastery of the Wacom tablet, self-publishing, culinary skills.
- Current Creative High: Working for myself, illustrating a graphic novel
The Corporate Version
Creative Businesses. Creative Careers. Dana founded Aspyre Solutions in early 2009, focusing on small business development and career consulting. As an artist, illustrator and entrepreneur herself, Dana’s mission is about supporting the upstart of creative and socially-conscious small businesses, through career transition coaching and business consulting for creative professionals and entrepreneurs.
Dana has helped hundreds of professionals in advertising, marketing, design, multimedia and other industries in creating the career plans, freelance ventures and small businesses that ultimately allow them to make a living doing the work they are passionate about. She has presented seminars on navigating careers, transition and work-life balance to several colleges and universities, and her advice has been featured on MSN Careers, Fox Business News, NewsDay, CareerBuilder.com, GlassDoor and About.com.
Dana has a really expensive piece of paper denoting her academic dabbles in Communications and Visual Arts from a big little University in Boston. She is also an artist, freelance illustrator and proud Brooklynite.
