We recently connected with Hannah Beppel and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Hannah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is a hard word to nail down. Depending on who you are, the way you define success could depend on money, family, job title, the success of your children, relationship status and so much more. I define success in a much more existential way. For me, success is not the job title I have, or the annual salary I make, or the car I drive. It’s the ability to lie down in bed at night, and be grateful for what I have, be hopeful for what I’m working toward, and cherish those in my life. In a word—to me—success is peace.

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?

For those that don’t know me, my background is in creative writing. I have a B.A. in English with a focus in fiction. I’m also halfway through my graduate studies in visual communication design, and expect to graduate in the spring. My desire as a professional is to create in a way that allows people to dive into the story. Whether that’s blogging in my personal sphere, or writing emails at work, I am always focused on communicating and writing in a way that will allow my readers to understand easily and become inspired by what I’ve written.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Even though I have one, almost two, degrees in communications, after I graduated from college, I had to start paying the bills, and none of the jobs I could quickly get my hands on were communications roles. That means, for the past 6 years, I’ve been a working professional in roles that do not fully recognize or utilize my potential as a creative. This has been really tough for me, since work is such a huge part of my life just like so many of us. I’ve struggled immensely when it comes to figuring out how to break into the world of creative professionals that write and communicate for their paychecks, and this struggle has brought with it a lot of insecurity. I’ve questioned my path so many times. “Why didn’t I just do that internship in college?” Or, “I’m never going to be good enough to get that creative writer or editor role.” Spending years in a field that is not your passion is sadly more common than we think, and it creates this tension inside oneself that is always asking the question, “am I good enough to do what I’m passionate about?” I’ve been working for a large corporate company for the past 2 or so years and my role is very customer service bases, and so with that, I’ve been on the lookout for other opportunities within the company that are communications focused. This means that over the last two years I’ve applied for and interviewed for a lot of different writing/communications roles. I’ve had interviews I felt like I nailed, but then didn’t get an offer, and I’ve had interviews I knew I bombed. All the while I’m thinking to myself: “if I can just get ONE person to give me a chance and look at what I can write, I know I can do that job.”
I’ve been rejected every time.
Until now.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Last week I interviewed for a content creator role in our marketing department. I don’t even think I expected to get an interview, but a colleague of mine put in a good word for me, so I was hopeful. Maybe it had “needs 4 years of experience in content creation” in the description. But then I did get an interview. And then the very next day, the recruiter asked if he could set up another interview with the manager. And then the day after that, they set up another interview with the VP. and omg my head was spinning at this point. And all I could do each day was work on creating that positive self talk inside my mind. “I CAN do this job. I am confident, I am capable.” And then before I could even stop holding my breath, they offered me the role early this week.

And that, my friends, is 6 years in the waiting. Six years of not giving up on my dreams. Six years of grinding in roles that did not jive with me. Six years of struggling with self-doubt.

I would not give up. I would not resign myself to work the rest of my adult life in a field that I’m not passionate about.
My resilience has paid off.

Contact Info:

• Website: whereswebsters.wordpress.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wheres_websters/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-beppel-99248b114/

Image Credits
Craig Larsen