The secret?
You’re either going to commit to it or you’re not.
Deciding is 100% of the decision.
The rest is simply a (happy) consequence.
Yo, I’m Ash! Fifteen years ago I was a small town girl growing up in a trailer park in rural Pennsylvania when I lost both of my parents and became an orphan. Fourteen years ago, I left for Philadelphia on a mission to discover what it meant to live a good life and do work you’re proud of (something I never saw modeled). Twelve years ago I realized that the rules were made up by a guy named Ted who has a dog named Wedgie—and “normal” was the most disappointing thing that ever happened to me. Eleven years ago I quit my shiny middle-class job in advertising to strike it out as a freelance writer—and landed myself sleeping in my car in a Kmart parking lot. Ten years ago I finally cracked the code and made my first $103,000 as a creative writer on the internet using nothing more than my voice. Nine years ago I doubled my earnings. Eight years ago, I continued doubling my income—and then some. And now, today, I run The Middle Finger Project, an irreverent media co. that helps other women find their voice and teaches them to use it to build whatever the f*ck they want. With a book coming out with Penguin Random House this FEBRUARY 11TH, I’m proud to be a bad influence on women and help them do something disobediently brave with their life and their career. Enter yo’ email address and I’ll send you my weekly advice column sharing everything I’ve learned on pursuing your passions for a living—and making a shit ton of money doing it.
But no serial killers. Promise I won’t send those.
Privacy Policy Info HereYou know what’s crazy? There’s not actually a team of people assigned to your life, sitting around monitoring your blood work, and your bank accounts, and the health of your relationships, jotting down notes, circling areas of concern. There’s no supervisor. No one checking your progress. No one setting quarterly reviews. As a result, we […]
I was 20 years old when I started watching her slip away. Normally during the summertime, she would spend all morning and a large portion of the afternoon out in our garden, diligently tending to every last petal, stem and root. Her forehead would glisten with beads of sweat, but it never seemed to bother […]
Here’s a little something to ponder: Band Aids. What comes to mind? Perhaps a small, rectangular piece of flexible plastic with adhesive that sticks to your skin and pulls at your little hairs when you finally tear it off, bringing back unpleasant memories of your last Brazilian wax. No? I should leave the Brazilian wax […]
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Costa Rica, but contrary to what you may think, one of the greatest things here is not the beach. Oh no. Definitely not. Nor is it the men. Or the fishing. Or the pineapple that I bragged about eating the other day. In reality, quite possibly the […]
There’s always a reason why you shouldn’t. Shouldn’t spend the money. Shouldn’t be so frivolous. Shouldn’t miss work. Shouldn’t be irresponsible. Shouldn’t act so hastily. And a million other reasons why you shouldn’t do what you’ve been wanting to do. The real question, of course, isn’t whether you should or you shouldn’t. Because when it […]
By the end of the night, it was as if I had just had the best sex of my life, without so much as having shared a kiss. I knew nothing about him, except that I needed more. And more I got. Candlelit dinners, walks through parks, sensual kisses on street corners, and giggly phone […]
A fun, sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek list of indications you might be an unconventional thinker. My favorite is still number one!
You know what’s fucked up? Normal. Normal is so fucked up. For example, it’s normal for expats to drink daily in Costa Rica. This is a terrible idea, and yet, because it’s done over and over again, it’s become normalized. NO ONE WILL GIVE YOU THE STINK EYE FOR SLUGGING A BEER AT 10AM, Y’ALL. […]
Do people tell you that you should be more realistic? That you’ll need to join the real world someday? That your ideas will never work out because of x, y and z? Check out the uber popular guest post I wrote for Free Pursuits.
It’s okay if…you’re drowning in self-doubt. It’s okay if…you don’t know where to start. It’s okay if…you started, but want to stop. It’s okay if…you sometimes mix up your priorities. It’s okay if…you didn’t say the right thing. It’s okay if…you really fucked up the first time around. It’s okay if…you fucked up the second time […]
“She’s so proud of your traveling. She wants you to live the life she was afraid to live, but always wanted. You were always her greatest work of art.” Those were the words she said to me. She was my mom’s friend back in the moments of white Mustang convertibles, flirty bell bottoms, heart-filled hopes and […]
“I wish I could travel the world like you.” It was a comment left on a recent Facebook post, and admittedly, a comment I get often—but not one I like to receive. It depresses me, more than anything, how powerless most Westerners feel over their own lives. Anything is possible, in modern Western society, and […]
Join a girl from a trailer park who went on a mission to figure out what it means to live a good life and do work you’re proud of—and ended up as one of the world’s foremost career hackers, making a million dollars from the backseat of her car, writing on the Internet and traveling everywhere and causing lots of religious people pause.
