One thing --> the next

Here's a story about how one thing leads to the next with some added splashes of self-created opportunities...

Three years ago, I landed an internship at a marketing firm in New York City. New Balance was one of their clients, and New Balance was about to launch a new line of walking shoes. My job was to find bloggers to wear this new set of kicks and blog about their daily experiences.

So I went through blog after blog after blog after blog after blog.

And then I found this one, and it was not at all what New Balance was looking for, yet it was so fascinating that I bookmarked it for myself.

This blog was one of a writer, a photographer, a human rights worker, a hotelier, a designer named Maryam... living on an olive grove in Marrakech, Morocco. She had such a wonderfully interesting perspective of the world. Every time I read her blog, I found eagerness to learn from her, to watch her connect all of her seemingly random passions into a single image- a brand she had created of herself.

I would do anything, I thought, as I envisioned myself merely folding towels at her boutique hotel, anything to see how she does it.

I emailed her with explosive enthusiasm, masked partially by professionalism. It's worth a shot, is it not? And a few months later I was on a plane to a place where I knew no one and nothing. People tried to discourage me, they tried to scare me, because they were scared for me. But what they didn't realize is that I find curiosity in what I don't know, not fear. They didn't realize that what they gave me in their worried words was fuel to go see what Morocco was for myself.

 

My relationship with Maryam became something more than a one-way blog post. She became my teacher and my friend. Every day she would come to me with "exciting news" ...Martha Stewart wanted to meet her, the travel channel wanted to film her, or Tory Burch wanted to shop with her.

For Tory Burch and a few of her friends, Maryam and I planned an afternoon cocktail party on the terrace to follow their day of shopping.

Is it as cheesy to wear a Tory Burch shirt when you meet Tory as it is to wear a band shirt to their concert? ...I wore my Tory Burch shirt.

It was at this party, on this terrace, in Morocco, that I met Terri, the director of the Tory Burch Foundation empowering low-income woman by providing them with education in entrepreneurship and micro-loans.

I kept her business card as I trekked through Europe and Sri Lanka.

I applied for a job with the foundation.

I had 4 interviews.

And I will now put a pause on my San Francisco job search (I will most certainly be back) to take an unbeatable opportunity in the city that shares my pulse.

That's how things happen when you combine the theories of "one thing leads to the next" and "it's worth a shot."

A New York City internship --> a blog --> an email --> Morocco --> the Tory Burch foundation, with lots of living in between.