We were lucky to catch up with Madison Young recently and have shared our conversation below.

Madison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style. Do you have an interesting story from that stage of your career that you can share with us?

Internships are amazing and such an immersive and life-changing way to gain knowledge and experience in your industry if you are lucky enough to get one. I say lucky because it truly is a privilege to be able to work (most of the time in my experience) unpaid, doing something you truly love.

That being said, Internships and hands on experience can be a really jarring feeling and it kind of shakes you from dreaming about something to actually doing it. It allows you to step up the plate and be like “yes this is for me and I am willing to give it my all” or kind of check-in with yourself and ask if this is something you really feel like doing for the rest of your life,

Either way, you should be giving it your all, not taking it for granted and learning everything you call, all of the time.

That’s where my internship story comes in: It’s a reminder that every experience, good or bad, is a learning experience and you should grab it with both hands and do everything you can with this knowledge.

I was working on a TV show set for CBS around 2019. I was just about to turn 20 and it was my first internship in a new setting, a new state, with actual like big wig guys who know what they’re doing. I was working on set like 18 hours a day or something crazy as a production assistant. It was exhausting but thrilling. I was learning so much just by watching (and sometimes doing) but mostly just using my time running errands for the crew to ask as many questions as possible to as many people as possible.

I was getting worn ragged a little bit working so long and honestly just woke up one morning not wanting to go. I had this amazing opportunity and just didn’t want to show up. I went, obviously, and was hating every second. When you’re tired in a strange place with no support system it can be a lot!

PA’s (production assistants) switch out a lot and I was meeting a lot of new people every single day. This one kid showed up on this particular day and it was the first and only time he worked on set with me. He was nice enough but you could tell he didn’t really want to be there. We were tasked with location scouting duties since we were on location and not at a studio this day. I was hot, tired, and angry. Then everything changed when this kid throws a water bottle directly on the ground after drinking it. I was like flabergasted that someone would litter so openly, especially on a job. When I asked him about it he said “I don’t really care, someone lower than me will pick it up. I’m only here because my dad pulled stings anyway.” I literally thought I was being pranked. Mind you, we were the lowest people as PA’s, lol. I was so appalled by his behavior and it really slapped me in the face how I was acting like him that day by not giving it my all.

Honestly this story is a just a long winded way to say don’t take knowledge for granted.

Madison, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my blog back in 2018 because I was a sophomore in college who was very overwhelmed with the idea and act of leaving teenage years and finally being a 20-something. I felt very lost and very overstimulated in the social media world so I wanted to create a place where I can kind of document my own journey to becoming myself while also serving as a place for other people my age to get some guidance or just read and understand they are not alone.

From there, I realized how much I enjoy the content creation aspect of the job more than the analytics. I started working jobs doing social media for other people, working at boutiques, all while still working on my own personal brand. I found out that really enjoy curation and creation and I am hoping to expand the blog into a brand rather than what it is current, just a blog.

What I think is special about The Young Editorial and my brand in general is my authenticity and open style of communication. I don’t promote or post things I don’t believe in, I hardly take on sponsors, and I speak openly about issues that might impact a lot of people (and do from the responses I get) that they might not know other people struggle with.

I have Hashimotos and PCOS which are honestly super common in women. Both of these issues aren’t super-well talked about, so opening that door for discourse has been super important to me. Both issues are also underfunded and under researched so most advice for people struggling is anecdotal, which means If I can share just one thing that has helped me feel better, I want others to know and feel better too.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

If you own a company or creative service and do your own branding of any kind: GET FAMILIAR WITH CANVA!! I truly cannot stress this enough. Being able to create a brand kit and then use that brand kit to make anything you need for your business is essential. It is so easy and I quite literally use it every single day.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, it’s opening up discourse about different things and letting my audience know they aren’t alone. There are a lot of people out there who tell you to keep you opinions to yourself or stop oversharing but just seeing on person post about something I feel passionately about feels amazing. I feel this way especially when I talk about my autoimmune disease, specifically PCOS. PCOS is so common in women and it comes with so many side effects that just aren’t talked about. Putting myself out there to let other women know they aren’t struggling alone means the world to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Theyoungeditorial.com
• Instagram: www.Instagram/theyoungeditorial
• Other: Personal: www.Instagram.com/mxdisonyoung Email: [email protected]