27 years old • Fort Collins
Content creator (Anti Work Girlboss), TEDx speaker, author, contributor for Entrepreneur magazine
What’s your occupation? Explain your career, accomplishments and professional highlights.
I am a content creator with half a million followers across various platforms. I coined the “lazy girl job” trend, resulting in tens of thousands of media mentions worldwide, including The New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera and 60 Minutes Australia. I’m a published author, TEDx speaker, mentor and philosopher on our relationship with work. I also write on Substack and run a business offering both digital and physical products. My work focuses on inspiring and supporting my community to find balance and purpose in their professional lives.
Tell us about yourself, your history and how you came to be where you are now.
I was raised in Fort Collins by a single mom, with a father battling addictions. As an overachiever, I used external validation to define my self-worth. After college, I worked in the tech industry but suffered from severe burnout and a fall that caused a concussion. This led me to seek work-life balance through a “lazy girl job” that demanded less of my time and energy, allowing me to explore new passions while earning an income. I started creating “anti-work” content that promotes alternative mindsets around work and success, and over time, I’ve built a social movement prioritizing work-life balance.
Tell us something unique about you.
I have a household full of French bulldogs and my sensational partner, Matthew Fugate, owner of The Fugate Team, a real estate company in Northern Colorado. I got sober July 2020 and lead a life of curiosity and compassion for others. Yoga is my happy place.
What do you consider the biggest accomplishment or challenge you’ve overcome, either professionally or personally?
Personally, my sobriety and starting a family with peace and respect. Professionally, everything that I have today. I am a first-generation college graduate and the first woman in my family to achieve financial freedom on her own. I am the first woman to make over six figures in my family. I am also the first published author.
Where do you see yourself in five years? In 10 years?
I see myself continuing to mentor and speak internationally in a way that feels aligned. I also hope to start a family in the next five to 10 years. I see my upcoming book published with another on the way. I see real estate investing and having a finished backyard and living room to host friends and family. I see Matthew and I starting a brick-and-mortar business in Fort Collins that creates community.
What piece(s) of advice would you give to your younger self?
I would tell myself that it will all make sense one day. Everything happens for a reason, and it’s so important not to sweat the small stuff.
At what point did you come to terms with your burnout in the corporate world?
I went into college thinking that I needed to get a hard degree and have a hard life at a hard job and that at some random, magical point not in my control, it wouldn’t be hard anymore. Frankly, I was waiting for someone else to fix my relationship with work. My concussion taught me that my success and my relationship with work is up to me to fix. While recovering, I was able to take a lot of time off from work that I hadn’t had since I was a teenager. I observed what my days at work were like, and I realized that if I continued in that direction, I would never be happy. I was very thankful that my concussion stopped me from being able to work and forced me to reflect on my life’s trajectory. When I started feeling better, I followed my curiosities not centered around my job. One of them was content creation, and I just kept following that until I could scale it into a business. Yoga, reading and other hobbies became just as important to me as my work performance.
Why did you decide to get sober, and how has that impacted your personal and professional success?
I realized that I was holding myself back in so many ways. After learning how to live an alcohol-free life, I learned how to frame all life events as opportunities happening for me. Prior to getting sober, I lived in a black or white, good or bad mindset where I would catastrophize life. Now I am able to go with the flow and prioritize my happiness. Workaholism is an addiction just like substance abuse, so I was able to find patterns in my old habits that were no longer serving me, like being anxiously attached to anything that could give me an external reward instead of finding the reward within myself. I learned that personal and professional success is achieved through radical honesty on what is and isn’t working, intentional efforts put toward your goals and detaching from the outcomes.
