On Penelope Trunk and challenging your notions

Are you reading Penenlope Trunk's blog?

Do you care about your career/life/passion?

Then you should be reading Penelope Trunk.

Lately, I've grown more and more interested in creating a meaningful life. I think Laura's been feeling similarly, and the posts around here have been reflecting that. The past few years I've been, quite honestly, lazy—I've been working in a comfortable job that's creatively unfulfilling, and I hadn't been giving myself the alone time or creative outlets that I need to feel satisfied. How do I know that? Because I drink, smoke, eat and laze around too much, and my nerves still feel on edge. I've been taking steps to rectify that, but it's scary to start creating a life that looks different, because when you've been told, "do a, b and c and you'll be fine", and then you're not, you're left without a road map.

Gen Y likes road maps. I know this because of Penelope Trunk. I know lots of things because of Penelope Trunk, like how Gen Z will change education, or the 4 big lies about social media, or how to write a stellar resume. She's who first encouraged me to take a Myers-Briggs test (INTJ, btw). Hands down, she gives the best career advice on the web. I'd go so far as to say life advice, but the only thing that hold me back is how shockingly, brutally, earnestly open she is with her often messy life. But that is so inspiring.


I'm a writer. I write for a living. And that means, when I'm looking for new opportunities, everything I write represents me, because employers have Google and Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and will check me out. I used to, and sometimes still, feel the hugest anxiety about that, because I'm just doing my thing. I'm just @replying my friends and posting about stupid videos I really like and writing, writing, writing in an attempt to clarify my voice, my style, this THING inside me that feels compelled to just spew out words everywhere. Reining it in can be a pain, but caging it is something I've grown too comfortable with.

Trunk's openness is raw. It's real. She writes about human things, real emotions and situations that have stakes, not just about pretty photos a million other blogs have shared. And don't get me wrong, pretty photos have their place (and occupy the lion's share of my GReader queue), but it's passive. Unless you're taking those photos yourself or using them as inspiration to actually do something, it's a cop-out to your creative self. I like looking at them too, and I like Burgundy Girls as a space to share them sometimes because I want you guys to see the cool stuff I'm seeing out there, but I don't want that to become my main output. It's too easy. I don't want to solely be a curator of other people's content. Trunk is doing something different—she's challenging our notions about what makes someone successful, she's acknowledging the difficulties of real life, and she's making others feel okay about it.

I feel more okay with failure now, and I define true failure as something different than I did before reading her blog regularly. I feel like part of the difficulty with being internet savvy is the pace, keeping up with how quickly things move, and I feel like I can see curveballs coming better than I did before. Reading her blog makes me feel inspired and capable, because I see that being smart and being able to start up companies doesn't mean you have to be a perfect person. That I can be a messy person too, and still support myself and share great ideas with others. And that failure is nothing to fear.

So keep calm. Carry on. Make awesome shit, and read Penelope Trunk.

I'm thinking of starting a series about game changers—people who I think are creating the best content, inspiring the best thinking, and making me sit up straighter. Would you guys be interested in reading that? Do you have any recommendations on people/blogs that are doing that well?