Notes of Interest + Unconventional Scandal

1. Found out my mother was dead via Post-It note
2. Buried her at age 21 and left the trailer park we called home
3. Fled to the city of Philadelphia with nothing but a suitcase
4. Used my Straight A student smarts to get my first job—a marketing gig—in the city
5. Quickly rose up the corporate ranks out of a desire to “be normal” (and have things like stairs)
6. Built a house with a man
7. Had things like LAWN SPRINKLERS
8. Despite having money for the very first time, started to feel the first pangs of apathy (“is this it?”)
9. Enrolled in grad school (as all disillusioned people do)
10. Studied Linguistics (as all confused people do)
11. REALIZED I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING
12. Kept climbing the corporate ladder—despite questioning everything
13. Received promotion after promotion, ultimately winning awards for my sales performance working in advertising
14. Feeling more and more disillusioned every day, but unsure what to do about it (“welcome to the real world?“)
15. Started The Middle Finger Project in 2009 to blog about my observations re: the way we work (the name was the perfect reflection of my attitude at the time)
16. Began writing, blogging, tweeting, and interacting with strangers on the Internet every day
17. Felt the first spark of creative satisfaction
18. Desperately feared becoming a starving artist (starving was the last thing a girl from a trailer park could afford to be)
19. Kept writing anyway
20. Realized that everything I had always dreamed of having was hollow (…or shallow…or both?)
21. Left aforementioned big, fancy job
22. Left aforementioned big, fancy house
23. Made some very stupid financial decisions
24. Made a few more stupid decisions
25. Eventually found myself mired in credit card debt, student loan debt, personal loan debt, and every other kind of debt
26. Ended up sleeping in my car in a Kmart parking lot in South Philadelphia with no where left to go, and no where left to turn
27. Out of desperation, I was forced to dig deep and get creative
28. That was the night I became an entrepreneur
29. I’d go on to make my first 6 figures in 6 months, writing online
30. I’d stay up late into the middle of the night, unable to stop “working”
31. I’d sell everything I owned and fly to the end of the earth, renting an apartment in Santiago, Chile, where I sought an all-new start (the apartment just happened to be located on Calle Huerfanos, or “Orphan Street”—I can’t make this up)
32. I’d earn my first $1,000,000 blogging & writing on The Middle Finger Project
33. I’d go and spend a summer in Barcelona
34. And travel to places like Switzerland and England and Italy and Argentina and Colombia and Ecuador and Panama and Guatemala…and more
35. I wouldn’t get married; I wouldn’t have kids; I wouldn’t do a lot of things most people do
36. Instead I’d drive cross-country visiting blog readers and staying in their homes for an entire summer
37. I’d take private pilot’s lessons—and show up wearing red cowboy boots (what ELSE do you wear?)
38. I’d take women on retreats around the world (the last one was at this adorable boutique hotel in the English Countryside!)
39. I’d spearhead the world’s coolest, most down-to-earth, useful international business support group, Unf*ckwithable Girlfriends, for women who also want to become self-made
40. I’d turn down a $250,000 offer from a client in the name of continuing to grow my own business
41. I’d hire an instructor to come to my house twice a week to give me salsa classes
42. I’d pitch my literary agency by hand-couriering over hot green high heels and a bottle of whiskey (I’m now happy to call Writers House NYC my home.)
43. I’d give keynote speeches at universities
44. I’d guest lecture on cruise ships
45. I’d hire women from my hometown and give them jobs
46. I’d spend entire month in the back woods of Vermont writing
47. I’d feel the rush of making $100,000 a week
48. I’d be contacted by TV show producers, and radio hosts, and folks running conferences and events around the world
49. I’d keep writing as my #1 priority, and write for three hours each day before anything else
50. I’d officiate my best friend’s wedding in Mexico—in English and Spanish (thank god for that master’s degree in Linguistics?)
51. I’d volunteer with the United Nations in language arts
52. I’d help my now-fiancé reinvent his own business from the ground up—and go from zero to a half a million dollars in a foreign country
53. I’d get covered in places like Entrepreneur Magazine, The Huffington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer
54. I’d be featured in a bunch of other really cool places alongside humans like Tim Ferris
55. I’d develop a series of online business starter kits for creating your own online business
56. I’d talk a lot about selling yourself with ease = OBSESSION
57. I’d fly to England to tour the Downton Abbey castle (total nerd)
58. I’d learn how to apologize with deep grace to my friends, when my business has taken priority
59. I’d also learn how to stand up for myself, and do the hard thing
60. I’d invite orphans to my home at Christmas
61. I’d make the best friends of my life on the Internet—and around the world
62. I’d fight a million dollar intellectual property litigation on principle
63. I’d learn the true meaning of self-reliance
64. I’d re-write my money story—and a few other stories, while I was at it
65. I’d spearhead an exclusive business makeover experience in London (we had clients fly in from places like New York, The Netherlands, Bali, and the North of England, of course)
66. I’d mentor new unconventional minds every single day
67. I’d believe in trial-by-fire as a personal policy
68. I’d practice the art of becoming unf*ckwithable like a religion
69. I’d refuse to stand down and let my days become forgettable
70. I’d ask you to stand up here with me—enter your email below and I’ll teach you everything I know.