I now work for the largest magazine publishing house in the world.

Nov 20

How the hardest times of my life led to my dream job…

It’s 5:44pm and I’m sitting here writing this newsletter after work from my company’s new offices at Meredith on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles…

I’m prepping to go into a recording studio tomorrow to record my very own mindfulness tracks…

And, because the small little start-up I began to work with after moving back to the States was recently acquired by the largest magazine publishing house in the world, my mindfulness content will soon reach their 187 million readers.

187 MILLION PEOPLE + MY ORIGINAL CONTENT = WHOA.

Meredith owns TIME, Parents, InStyle, Health, People, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Martha Stewart Living, Food & Wine, and many more…

Which is why I’m being asked to create original content for our mindfulness app to use in all of these different publications. Readers of these magazines can now listen to my tracks on body positivity, mindful parenting, relationships, chronic pain, athletic performance, and more!

So…

Could I have predicted that getting divorced, moving from Taiwan back to California, and taking this job would now lead to this?

Or, that the 15 year battle I had with eating disorders and body dysmorphia could now be transformed into something good to help other women (and men) going through what I did?

Or, that pursuing my passions of becoming a yoga teacher and a Reiki practitioner – AND WRITING – could have led me here?

Nope, no way.

I went to Berkeley, and most of my friends at the time were engineers or going to the renowned Haas Business School. Meanwhile, I pursued an arts degree in English and Mass Communications.

I distinctly remember a moment during freshman year in the dorms, when one of my engineering friends (who’s now very successful) said to me:

“What the hell are you going to do with an English degree?”

I felt pretty chagrined at the time.

He was voicing aloud one of my own personal worries… What WAS I going to do with an English degree?

I’ll tell you the fuck what.

I graduated and went into marketing and advertising.

I never imagined that I could make a living from my writing, but make a damn good living I did. To the point that when I was working as a marketing communications consultant at Neutrogena, I was bringing in $250,000 a year.

At the age of 26.

That year and a half of working with them and investing wisely allowed me to save enough money to essentially live the next 10 years of my life doing whatever I wanted — and needed.

I did a lot of therapy… a lot.

I became a travel writer and went on five-star trips around the world, where I was treated like a celebrity…

I became a yoga teacher, as the practice was such a profound part of healing my eating disorder AND waking up my sense of spirituality…

I bought whatever I wanted, including a sleek black Audi A3 that I’d get stopped on the street about…

And, I eventually moved to Kauai in Hawaii – my dream of all dreams – where I would meet my future husband and give birth to my future daughter…

There’s one other instance I distinctly remember, one that rivaled that moment in college.

When I lived on the cliffs of Del Mar with the ocean as my backyard, my next-door neighbor had by then witnessed a lot of this life I created and asked:

“How the hell did you make all your money?”

From me.

From pursuing my dreams.

From taking risks.

From being damn resourceful and a super amazing connector.

From believing in the power of manifestation and being supported by the magic of the Universe.

When I got this job with the start-up, I was in a very vulnerable place of rebuilding my life, because not all the risks panned out in the ways that I hoped…

Their starting salary was way less than I was making in my mid-20s.

Yet, over the last couple of decades, I’ve realized a couple of things.

I’ve learned what’s most important to me in my life: my daughter, time freedom, personal independence. And, this opportunity enables me to work from home where I get to do everything from be with my daughter for trips to Legoland to taking care of her when she’s sick to surfing when then waves are good and diving into projects when I’m most creatively inspired.

I’ve learned that it really matters who I surround myself with, and I now work with an incredible team of humans.

I’ve learned that the type of work I do greatly impacts my level of contentment, so I do work I love.

And that’s how I’m here.

Sitting on the top floor of a high rise building where I now have access to the editors-in-chief of my dream publications.

Tomorrow, when I go in to the studio to record my tracks, I’ll be recording my own personal story of how I healed my eating disorder and creating resources I wish I had along my own journey.

Then, in the near future, I know I’ll be writing and recording tracks about my divorce and the resources I wish I had during that relationship. Not long after that, I’ll be writing and recording tracks on mindful parenting that I believe have been so supportive in raising my wondrous daughter.

A little while from that, I’ll be writing and recording tracks about self-care.

As I write this last line, I’m feeling emotional, tears welling up in my eyes, because I always imagined that those experiences – those hard, fraught experiences – would lead to something great.

And now look where I am…