temporary expert

hyper fixate it till you make it

I’m pretty sure I can hyper-fixate my way into being a quasi-expert in mostly anything (maybe not neuroscience but also maybe neuroscience??). If a topic excites me enough, I can go as far as making it my entire personality, shifting my life trajectory, building plans around it, and at minimum finding any opportunity to shift a conversation back to it.

This 100% explains my stint as a Disney adult. I became obsessed with the puzzle that was trip-planning, how to navigate each trip to make it slightly different and more efficient, and I was plugged into forums that would leak insider information for future park planning. It didn’t take long for me to connect this to my creative engine and from there Park Hopper Collective was born.

This was ultimately the start of the shift from parks expert to design/ecommerce/social media expert. I spent hours researching which e-commerce platforms were ideal, watching YouTube tutorials for Adobe Illustrator, subscribing to social media marketing blogs.

When I got my first gig as an independent contractor for a culinary industry brand, I dove into that world. I couldn’t determine a strategy if I didn’t understand that universe so I worked on my own culinary skills. I wasn’t useless in the kitchen before but I had a lot to learn and I was actually excited to experiment with new ingredients, techniques, and cuisines. I closely followed popular food bloggers and other industry brands to pick up trends and lingo so when it came time to connect with influencers for partnerships, it felt like a true collaboration amongst two teams with a passion for food.

Now I am in a position where I am creating content and marketing/social strategy for a retail brand, animal welfare nonprofit, an IT company and others. It can be exhausting playing ‘expert’ in all of these very different fields. It can lead to a feeling of imposter syndrome or an identity crisis spending so much time being ‘someone else’ (aka brand voice) on the internet and not enough time being yourself. I’ll speak more on the boundaries I’m putting in place some other time to combat this.

Here’s what I’ll leave you with : You don’t need a formal degree to do this work well. You don’t need to understand cyber security or be a master chef or a cat whisperer to create engaging content or implement relevant strategies for growth. You just have to feel that spark to learn something new and the excitement to share it with others.