When I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been looking back on my career, I wasn’t exaggerating. Being in-between chapters has a way of pulling out old memories: the wins, the mistakes, and the moments that shaped how I work.
Over the past twelve years, I’ve worn a lot of hats: designer, marketer, department head, strategist, and builder. I didn’t follow a linear path, but I learned something invaluable from every pivot. Four lessons stand out the most.
I’ve always been the type to create my own opportunities. I wasn’t handed a roadmap; I taught myself marketing by saying “yes” to projects I didn’t fully know how to do yet, then figuring them out as I went. I learned by building—campaigns, teams, brands, and oftentimes the very systems that held them together. That mix of curiosity and resourcefulness became my signature.
Now, between chapters, I’ve had the rare chance to stop and ask: What have I learned from a decade of building? And where do I want to go from here?
Lesson 1: Growth Isn’t Always Up, Sometimes It’s Wide
My career has never been a straight ladder. I started in design, evolved into marketing, and eventually led entire departments. Each move was less about climbing and more about expanding, adding new skills, taking on new challenges, and learning to see the big picture.
What I’ve learned is that range is as valuable as rank. The ability to jump between strategy and execution, creative and analytical, leadership and hands-on problem-solving. That is what allows you to lead with flexibility.
Lesson 2: Building From Scratch is a Crash Course in Everything
As the first in-house marketing hire at Cosmopak, I wasn’t just “doing marketing.” I was establishing the entire function (the strategy, the processes, the tools, etc.) in a company where no formal marketing department had existed before.
It was equal parts exhilarating and daunting. Every day meant not just executing projects, but learning the inner workings of a new company, understanding the people, adapting to their processes, and figuring out what “success” looked like to them.
Starting from zero sharpens every skill. You become a strategist, a project manager, a communicator, and a builder all at once. It’s high-pressure, but it also gives you a unique ownership over the results.
Lesson 3: The Best Marketing Is Rooted in Listening
We talk so much about telling a story in marketing, but the best stories start by listening. Listening to customers, to your team, to industry shifts that are still whispers.
I’ve seen campaigns fall flat because they started with an assumption instead of a conversation. Listening gives you the language, the empathy, and the timing to make your message matter.
Lesson 4: Change Is a Strategic Advantage
Change rarely arrives with perfect timing. Sometimes it feels like an unwelcome guest who shows up unannounced, disrupting plans, and forcing you to adjust before you feel ready.
But here’s what I’ve learned: change, even the kind that knocks the wind out of you, can be one of the most powerful tools for growth. Change forces you to pause, reassess, and see the landscape from a different perspective.
The key is not to fight it, but to work with it.
Even when optimism feels far away, there’s almost always a silver lining hidden inside the shift.
— Cassandra buisson
Maybe there’s a skill you’ll sharpen, a perspective you’ll gain, or an opening you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.
Adaptability isn’t about scrambling to keep up; it’s about using the momentum of change to move in a direction that ultimately serves you better. The sooner you can spot that opportunity, even if it’s small, the sooner you can turn disruption into an advantage.
Looking Ahead
Right now, I’m in the middle of one of those transitions. I’m exploring what’s next, not as a blank slate, but as someone carrying over a decade of lessons, mistakes, and successes that have shaped how I lead and how I think.
This blog is part of that exploration. It’s a place to share insights from the road so far, to process what I’m learning now, and to connect with others who are also in the middle of their “what’s next.”
If you’re navigating your own in-between chapter, here’s my advice: don’t wait for the path to appear. Start walking. You might just find you’re building it as you go.
