My exclusive announcement is finally here: I am quitting my freelance career. 

Five years of bouncing around gigs in pursuit of an entrepreneurial dream… I quit. I’ve thought a lot about how I want to share my story publicly so it was perfect timing that Stephanie Vorhees at Crush New York approached me for an interview last week. 

I’ve been taking a long, hard look at the career path I’ve dealt with this past year. New Years Eve I laid in bed unconsolable as I tried to think of just one success from each month that had just passed by. I couldn’t. Every month seemed to end up worse than the previous and I was puzzled as to why this kept happening. Opportunities that presented themselves as meaningful, enjoyable, and promising quickly became nightmares for me. I couldn’t get things right and the line between my personal life and my professional career began to blur. Despite my best efforts, I was falling apart. 

Things were really, really bad. I was left without a place to live three times in 2012. I noticed myself becoming a different person: someone with no motivation, no trust in other people, a distracting negative attitude, and crushing stress that took a toll on me in ways I never thought imaginable. 

Five years of this crap wasn’t worth it. 

In the end, unable to look back with pride on work I had done (with a majority of roles I flat out abandoned for more reasons than one), losing my confidence and motivation to contribute my talent, and being disregarded in too many ways, I gave up. I knew that things had to change and they had to change NOW. My life depended on it. 

So, how did I quit and what am I doing now?

Getting a job is all about who you know. It’s the oldest tip in the book, and it’s absolutely true. You never know who may have an offer you can’t refuse one day, and that is exactly why I always tell people to connect with people in a meaningful way. Don’t think about business cards; think about conversation.

For me, it’s also all about timing. Good timing has always been unpredictable for me, and this time was one of those perfect times.

With no desire to stay in New York, given I had no money or guaranteed long-term offers, I was on my last leg to find an excuse to give this “career-y thing” one more shot. At my lowest of lows, that’s when I got recruited by a good friend of mine whom I had met at a travel happy hour for the opening position of Digital Sales Planner at THE WEEK and mental_floss. We know each other pretty well and have exchanged many pro-tips, attended the same tech events, and even did some bike rides together (this is my version of “networking”). No application, no job description, no experience in sales required. The job was mine if I wanted it. Salary, benefits, and paid vacation were also on the table. 

I of course accepted. For the first time in my professional career, I felt I had made the right adult decision. I finally could see a future for myself again and could regain confidence and challenge myself to accomplish better work. As Digital Sales Planner, I am able to take all of my digital media experience creating, managing, and measuring integrated advertising programs for publishing. It’s a new world for me, but I welcome the learning curve. 

I thank every one who has followed my story and continues to follow my story no matter what successes and failures I go through along the way. I hope that I can inspire you to also find your own path and create a meaningful career, even if it takes longer than you want and requires you battle the same obstacles I had to. I welcome your comments (and congratulations) with open arms. Feel free to email me at my new address or ask a question or tweet me. 

In addition to working full time at mental_floss and THE WEEK, I will be teaching a five week digital career path program with The LAMP and throwing a dinner party for Melba’s New York launch. 

See you at the water cooler…

Clarity is one of my new favorite finds as it offers an easy way for people to receive entrepreneurial advice. Here’s how it works:

• Set your hourly call rate
• Schedule calls with others
• Share your advice questions
• Donate earnings to a nonprofit
• Collect earnings through PayPal

I’ve been waiting to sign up for a service like this and can’t wait to start!

Excited to have chatted with the bitly community team on how I’ve been using their links platform both personally and professionally over the years. Find out my tricks for using bitly as part of content strategy with clients and what sites I live for. 

Read the full interview here.

For my early followers who knew me when I was still doing music publicity - I’m back!

Now covering Musicplayr, a German startup with a new concept: now you can curate and share your favorite songs/videos from the web all in one place with Musicplayr’s free iPhone app, available at the App store today.

Since its debut in 2011, Musicplayr has been on a mission to simplify how users create and showcase their online music profiles. Recently the site launched in the U.S., gaining over 100,000 users curating and sharing their own web music playlists. Musicplayr remains the only free, cross-platform music and video web service available worldwide. 

Now available on iOS, Musicplayr gives users the ability to showcase their online musical identity and create a personalized music experience:

• Explore & follow music profiles based on genre, tags, or songs
• Stream music while browsing other playlists without switching screens
• Identify unknown tracks through Gracenote audio finger technology
• Organize, share, and blog your favorite music through a web music archive

With Musicplayr, users collect music links from YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Dailymotion and music blogs, allowing them to organize and play songs from multiple internet sources as a shareable playlist. Think Pinterest for music lovers or Twitter for music discovery. 

Check out Musicplayr for the iPhone now available at the App Store. You can read more here.

Let me know what you think!