The Line Between Work & Everything Else

The first time I worked for myself, it was accidental. But the appeal was obvious. I enjoyed the flexibility and the variety of moving between clients, projects, and problems that kept my day-to-day interesting.

But finding enough of that work was harder. And fresh out of college, I didn't have any experience. So my approach to finding my next client — to the extent that I had an approach — was mostly to hope.

If we're being honest, I was grasping at straws.

Looking back, I think I enjoyed working for myself more than I understood how to build a business around it. I could do the work someone put in front of me, but figuring out who needed that work, how to reach them, and why they should contract me was another matter.

Eventually, I went back to the W2 life. And looking back, that was what I needed. I needed more experience, more time inside good teams, and a chance to work with and for some rock stars.

Learning what good looks like

I've had a few stops since then, but my time at Forter gave me that opportunity.

My time there shaped what I believe about marketing and who I am in my career. The people around me changed my standards for the work. I learned how they thought, how they made decisions, and how the work could be fun.

And I got better because I was constantly surrounded by people who were incredible at their jobs.

In recent years, I've learned how much the environment around the work I do matters, too. Talented people can make each other sharper, and clearer direction gives everyone the room to do more ambitious work. But confusion, politics, and decisions made far away from the actual work have the opposite effect.

Years in corporate environments have given me clarity about what I value and what I can tolerate. Every job comes with compromises — some feel like a reasonable exchange for the people, the work, or the opportunity. Others take more from you than you realized you were agreeing to give.

That distinction can be hard to see early in a career. And I needed enough good experiences to recognize when something was off.

Making the work add up

In storytelling, a throughline is the thread connecting parts of a story. The scenes change, new characters appear, and the story takes twists and turns. But the throughline gives those changes a sense of connection from start to finish.

Good marketing needs that, too.

I've spent enough time in marketing teams to know how easy it is to get lost in publishing volumes and miss the point entirely. Teams can stay busy for months producing work that has little-to-no connection to what came before or what comes next — producing but aimless noise.

The individual pieces and shiny objects are fine, but ultimately, they're not building on or toward anything.

A throughline gives the work somewhere to go. It connects what a company believes with the ideas it wants to become known for. That connection helps a team decide what deserves more attention, what should be repeated, and what can be skipped.

This is the work I want to do with Throughline: help companies find that storytelling thread and pull on it to decide what comes next.

What follows you home

The name also resonates for another reason that has less to do with marketing.

Work rarely stays at work. If you hate your job, that feeling bleeds into the rest of your life. It changes how much energy you have and how much patience is left for the people that have nothing to do with whatever happened from 9-to-5 that day.

Work you love can follow you home, too. You have more energy and positivity because you spent the day doing something that you felt mattered or had an impact. You may keep thinking about an idea after closing your laptop because you're interested, not because you're dreading logging on tomorrow.

Of course, there are boundaries worth protecting. I don't want my career to become my entire identity. But I can't spend that much of my life working and pretend it has no effect on the person I am during the rest of it.

My career has shaped my confidence, my expectations, and the choices I've made outside of work. It has affected the kind of parent, husband, and person I have the energy to be. Sometimes that effect has been good. Sometimes it hasn't. But I've learned that regardless, the connection is there.

Trying again

The flexibility and variety that drew me to self-employment the first time are still enticing. But what's changed is what I'm bringing with me. I have more experience in the industry. I've worked alongside people who raised my standards. And I have a clearer sense of the work I do well, and the conditions that help me do it.

I'm sure there will still be uncertainty. Experience helps, but it doesn't make any of this automatic. And I may even find myself grasping at straws again from time to time. But at least now I'll recognize it.

The first time I worked for myself, it was accidental. Throughline reflects what I’ve learned since then about good marketing and what I need work to leave room for. And this time, I’m building it on purpose.

Looking to bring better storytelling to your content marketing? Let's talk.