How many women struggle with their career? Glass ceilings, pay inequity, gender-stereotypes, harassment, work/life balance, maternity leaves, kids. We could keep this list going. There are a dozens of legit reasons in the workplace that give us struggle. You know what though? Our desire to do more, be more, and be proud of our success outweighs everything else.
The struggle might be real, but so is the solution.
That’s why we’re building Define + Design Co. We want to empower women everywhere to know what exactly it is they want in their career and to design a way to get there. The struggle might be real, but so is the solution.
How did Define + Design Co. come to be? We’d like to spin a tale about a deep late night chat over glasses of wine, but instead it was a rushed three minute conversation between appointments and carting kids to daycare with Melissa saying to Julia “I’ve got it!!! Let’s build a company to help women create and manage their career AND brand. We should do this together,” and Julia responding “I love it, absolutely! Ok, I’ve got go, let’s chat later.”
More than business partners.
We like to think those three minutes changed history. Our history, at any rate. We go way back to grade three when we were BFFs running around the schoolyard. Two little girls full of wonder and glee. We both loved reading, playing The Little Mermaid in the pool, crafts, and exploring. The only thing that changed there is that we no longer play The Little Mermaid (ok, maybe Julia still does with her two little girls!).
Julia: the blushing bride. Melissa: the shocked wedding guest.
Time marched on. We grew up, we moved away from each other, but we always stayed in touch. Careers, marriage, houses, kids…all the adulting stuff. We both woke up one morning (different mornings, for the record) and realized how disconnected we were feeling from our jobs. We both wanted something more. Melissa set out on a path to establish her own career coaching practice while Julia ventured to create her own social media management business. We each drew greatly from our previous experiences to build up our own empires. And then that fateful Thursday morning arrived when Define + Design Co. was dreamt up.
We get it. We totally get it.
We’ve been there. We’ve faced career indecision and frustration, and we’ve had losses and challenges. But we’ve also faced career excitement and passion, and had wins and opportunities. The world of work is changing so rapidly right now that we all need to figure out how to adapt to it. The first step to figuring it all out is defining who you are and what you want. Then you can move on to designing the strategy and brand that will get you there. And we want to help you.
Over the next few months we are going to be finalizing our programs, resources, and tools that will be totally accessible, easy to use, and relevant to today’s market. Stick with us and we’ll show you the good stuff.
XO Melissa + Julia
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