We were lucky to catch up with Lindsay Taylor Dellinger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lindsay Taylor, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Less than two years after taking the leap from full-time fashion industry art director to writer, I have been able to earn a full-time living doing what I love and am most passionate about. I could say the journey actually began back when I was single-digit years old. I wrote a short story called “The Wolf’s Tree.” I still have it to this day, packed in a Rubbermaid bin full of my adolescent creative writings and research papers over the years. Growing up, my mama would tell everyone, “She’s gonna be a writer someday.”

I ended up in the fashion industry, working as a graphic designer and then as an art director. I never gave up writing. I just wasn’t doing it professionally. It was a creative outlet. For a few years, I was songwriting. I even recorded an album that I released in 2010.

Fast forward eleven years, the death of my parents, two cross-country moves, marriage and divorce, toxic workplace after toxic workplace, and lots of therapy. In September of 2021, I quit my well-paying job as an Art Director working directly with Disney products and apparel, and I pursued my passion. It wasn’t easy. There were moments of “What the hell did I do,” but I never looked back and always believed in myself. Thankfully, others believed in me, too.

My therapist often reminds me that, ten years ago, I would sit on her couch and say, “I just wanna get paid to write, but I don’t know how you make that happen,” Now look at me! It always makes me smile because I remember that girl, too. I couldn’t be more proud. Not only do I get paid to write, but my full-time work is dedicated to writing content for substance abuse and mental health treatment centers nationwide.

In the fashion industry, I felt like I was doing meaningless work. Each day, people would scurry around (including myself at times), acting like what we were doing was a matter of life and death, when in actuality, what I do now is more a matter of life and death than an overpriced graphic t-shirt selling at a theme park.

I wake up each day excited to “go to work,” which I put in quotations because I work remotely. My go-to work happens from wherever I want it to. In fact, I spent three months traveling across Europe, primarily Spain, this past summer. I hope to inspire others who might be in a situation similar to where I once was. It’s not lost on me just how rare it is to say and feel, “I love my job.” And that shouldn’t be rare.

Lindsay Taylor, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a full-time content writer for substance abuse and mental health treatment. I’m also a full-time advocate for mental health, and I speak openly about the benefits of talk therapy and what it’s done for me over the years. Although I no longer work in the fashion industry, I’m still open to doing graphic design work on the side. I also managed a complete design overhaul of my author’s website while in Spain this past September. In addition, I have a seven-year-old travel blog where I document my love for travel, wine, and random topics in between, including the tiny home on wheels that my partner and I built, which we affectionately call The Wow Wagon. I also published a 2022 memoir titled Swipe Write about 20 first dates with 20 different men and my quest to find love, and I’m working on my second memoir as we speak, titled Things My Therapist Knows. I’m a self-proclaimed word nerd or linguaphile, someone who loves languages and words.

In terms of services, I offer graphic design, editing, consultation, and writing services at the moment. I plan to provide my travel planning services in the coming year via The Road Linds Travels, the name of my blog. Everyone is always super impressed by my travel planning skills. I attribute them to my Zodiac sign. Can you guess which one it is?! Ha ha, I jokingly tell people that my toxic trait is if you say you want to go on a trip, I will have my flight booked, and travel plans commenced in less than twenty minutes! This actually happened in 2017. Maybe not in twenty minutes, but a dear friend said, “Let’s go to Japan,” so I got my flight the following week, and she couldn’t go after all. I ended up going to Japan solo, and that was one of the most magical, beautiful trips I’ve ever taken.

I want people to know I’m an open book. I pride myself on clear communication and vulnerability. I think vulnerability is a catalyst for connection. Do you have an idea that you want to discuss? Are you considering therapy but affected by the mental health stigma that very much still exists today? Are you considering solo travel but afraid? Let’s chat. Sometimes, just talking something over with someone else, hearing the words, can lead to clearer thoughts and, thus, solutions.

I’m proud of where I am today. If you just looked at my history, you may have expected me not to be where I am. I think there might have even been a time when I didn’t think it was possible – when I was sitting on my therapist’s couch twice a week saying, “I just want to write,” for example. I am not a stranger to the darkness and the depths to which darkness can go. In a nutshell, I grew up poor. My family never went on vacation, and my dad, unfortunately, struggled with addiction, one of the many aspects that led to my parent’s divorce when I was 15. I often say how I wish I knew the things then that I know now. However, if the work I do now can help another teenage girl whose father is struggling with addiction, then I’m right where I need to be. I lost both of my parents to cancer in 2011, four months apart, and I found myself married to someone who mirrored my father in more negative ways than one. I talk openly about these things because, as I said earlier, vulnerability is often a catalyst for connection. If I can make someone feel a little less alone by sharing my story, then let’s talk.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

As a former art director who managed a handful of small teams of creatives, one of the most important aspects of that role and in maintaining high morale is allowing creative adults to be creative adults. As much as society likes to place all creatives in a basket, we’re all different. Some of us aren’t organized, while others are obsessively so. Some of us need more direction than others, and some need freedom of trial and error.

Unfortunately, what often happens is that so-called “higher-ups” are not creative people, or they’re just money and power-hungry, so the human beings under them are treated like machines. As in life, you’re not going to treat your BFF the same way you treat your teenage son, so why would you lump a team of different people with different attitudes, creative styles, and backgrounds into the same basket?

As a manager, getting to know your team, if only on a professional level, is essential. Become acquainted with each person’s nuances, ask questions, and genuinely listen. Listening will most certainly teach you something.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that making others feel comfortable in my presence was my job. At twenty-six years old, I was faced with the death of both of my parents. My mother was my best friend, so losing her was particularly difficult, to say the absolute least. Grief is a rollercoaster ride, and in the beginning, I noticed certain people in my life begin to pull away and make passive comments that implied their discomfort. My least favorite was the timeline that people ignorant of the weight of grief applied to my grief. In other words, enough time had passed that I should be “over it by now.”

At first, I felt bad about myself, that somehow it was my job to put on a smiling face and feign enjoyment for the sake of others. I even stopped going out and spending time with others until a friend expressed frustration with that. Nothing I did was “right.”

It wasn’t until years later and after many hours of therapy that I realized how it’s not my job to make others comfortable. Those that belong in my orbit will remain, and those that don’t will be distant memories. No one can understand the magnitude and weight of losing a parent until they have lost a parent. Grief shows up when we least expect it and in ways that we don’t expect. It is not something for us to control for other people’s comfort. Most importantly, grief has no timeline, and it’s okay not to be okay.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lindsay-taylor-dellinger.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_road_linds_travels
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadLindsTravels
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaytaylordellinger/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyOnY9xuD-SJsYK3rBXKWtQ
• Other: https://theroadlindstravels.com/