Insecurity Doesn’t Always Mean Failure
In my early 30s, a few years after I moved to New York, I found myself on the dole. I started my career working as a receptionist at an uptown fashion PR agency, and then became a PA for a rising star publicist. But I was fired from that job for total insubordination. I would have fired me. So, there I was with no job.
New York is an expensive place to be broke. After a truly life-changing experience, in which I found my faith again, I stepped out to pursue freelance work. I can’t remember how it happened, but I got an interview with a boutique PR agency that represented a few big consumer brands to help them land some media in Las Vegas. Vegas was always a tough market to pitch, but I asked for a whopping $200 per day and she gave it to me. Yay!
The first day I walked in I felt like an imposter, I had no idea how I was going to deliver on the brief.
Unless you had real news, or something related to gambling or The Strip, the media just weren’t interested. We were promoting an Isaac Hayes concert in relation to some fashion launch. It was not “hard” news.
I sat at my desk and got to work. I combed the database for people to approach. I worked and re-worked my pitch to come up with something that was even remotely newsworthy. The owner of the agency was on location in Las Vegas and cheering me on. We had daily check-in calls with no forward momentum - it was a 5-day assignment. Around Wednesday I was ready to quit. I was getting nowhere and $200 a day was a lot of money to pay me for failure. I remember sitting at my desk, totally embarrassed but determined to see it through. I felt as if there was a hand on my shoulder telling me to hold tight.
Well, I failed. Miserably. Not one bit of press. But when the boss came back, she asked me to lunch, said she hadn’t met anyone with such a profound work ethic and offered me a job. Woah! What a lesson in perseverance in the face of failure. Even if she hadn’t offered me a position, I would have had the satisfaction of not giving up.