We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Michelle recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Brittany thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
I finally got my “dream” job on March 28, 2018 as a customer service representative for Verizon Wireless. Verizon was the call centers of call centers. If you worked at a call center your goal was to get to Verizon because of the pay and the benefits. I was there for almost a year until things started to go downhill for me. I loved it there at first. I enjoyed the newness of everything. The environment was vibrant, everyone was so happy. It was different for me. I never experienced that type of energy at a job before. But, that started to change. I started to hate coming in everyday. Everything started to become mundane. I started walking into work with a dark cloud over my head. I dreaded it and I watched the clock everyday waiting for it to be time for me to go home. I received a call on March 12, 2019 with my Dad and his wife telling me that he was diagnosed with ALS. ALS is a terminal disease that basically causes muscle weakness. There’s no cure for it. When I heard the news I started to think about his life and the things he accomplished and also didn’t. Then I started thinking the same things about my life. I didn’t want to just survive anymore, because anything can happen unexpectedly at any given time and I wanted to LIVE my life and not just survive it by doing things that didn’t bring me any type of joy. The very next day on March 13, 2019 I went into Verizon and gave them my notice that I wouldn’t be back. That was the biggest leap I have ever took that I honestly don’t recommend anyone doing without a plan. It was a very rocky road after that. In May 2020 I saw a video of a lady creating a tray using epoxy resin and I was so intrigued by it. I bought the supplies with the last bit of money I had left on my credit card and I began making epoxy resin products which led me to become a resin artist. It is now how I make my income. If it wasn’t for that leap that I took leaving my job, I would probably still be there dreading each day of my life.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
It’s funny because I really started this whole company from a single YouTube video! I was at home randomly watching YouTube videos online trying to figure out how I could make money from home after leaving my job. This video of a lady designing an epoxy resin tray popped up and it intrigued me so much, I had never been that interested in anything ever! That YouTube video changed my life. I create customizable closing signs and artwork for real estate professionals. Real Estate professionals are my focus. I create everything that I create for them. They’re my focus and my priority. I specialize in closing props for them. I help elevate the experience that their clients have on closing day. They get to hold a beautiful, unique one of a kind custom sign in front of their homes or at the closing table like they’re holding a trophy! That’s essentially what it is. It’s a prize. It’s a symbol that all of their hard work paid off and they finally get to feel the joy of it all. I solve the problem of helping real estate professionals help their clients to have an amazing experience at the end of their journey. It brings more joy and excitement to the experience than to just sign paperwork and receive their keys, which of course is already exciting but this is MAJOR and it’s a cause for celebration, so I offer products that add to that experience for them. What sets me apart from others is that I create products that can’t be duplicated. There’s no one sign that’s exactly alike. They may look similar, but none are the exact same. It’s also more than just a closing sign that can be printed by a machine. It’s actually ART. It’s a functional art piece. Art is valuable in itself. This combines both art and marketing material for my clients.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Yes, there was a period in my journey where I was getting bad reviews and feedback on my products. From things like it takes too long to receive to them wanting to change some things around with the layout or format of the pieces. I was really down about it because they were coming back to back all at once. Since I’m an actual artist it got to me a lot because I work really hard to create what I create and I began to feel like I was no longer a good enough artist. I questioned my artistic abilities. Especially since I had just discovered my artistic abilities in 2020. I started to question if I was really an artist or if I was just getting carried away with this whole thing. But then I took some time to pour positivity into myself. I switched my thought process from “I’m not good enough” to “these critiques will make me better” I started to take in the criticism that I was receiving and used it to make me an even better artist as opposed to giving up on my artistry which is what I originally wanted to do.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I think the biggest lesson I had to unlearn was “make what the people want”. I remember hearing to just create what other people seem to be interested in. I did that for quite some time actually. But eventually I began to burnout. I began to lose my artistic passion. Everything started to feel like work and my joy went away. To the point where I was starting to dread it. I started to feel like I was back on my old job working and hating every second of it. What I started to do was design products that I myself liked and offered that. I also started to design projects outside of what I had to do for my clients in order to get the creative juices flowing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brittanymichelledesigns.com/
- Instagram: BrittanyMichelleTheArtist
- Facebook: Brittany Michelle
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0jMJYJ8_wKMusnMQjqostg
Image Credits
Mecca Clark Javonna Alexander Shakeita Price Alyssa Sanderson Juliette Moore