Entering a New Chapter in My Life

Hey guys! It's about time I do another life update post and share what is going on in my life these days while also reflecting on a whole lot. This blog was the blog that started all of my content creating & since I was 19, I have documented every step of my young adult life from getting new jobs, going to concerts, & honestly figuring out the type of content creator I wanted to be & I've done a whole lot of experimenting on this blog with what content I'm passionate about & what content was truly... just a phase. 

This was also the platform that made me realize that I wanted to pursue social media & marketing as a long-term career. My career journey has been a wild one & at times, I'm glad I documented all of this because looking back on some of this stuff is just so wild to me but also makes me so freaking proud of how far I have come.

When I started this blog, I was 19 years old with a little part time job at Express (how ironic how I'm bringing that up considering the shirt in the picture above is from there LOL) & that was the job that got me into fashion/beauty/lifestyle blogging. That summer, I started the "Summer Life" series that basically was me documenting my day-to-day summer activities. As much fun as I was having with that, I knew I wanted to expand my fashion blogging and around this time 5 years ago, I got a job being a stylist at Francesca's the week after I turned 20 years old. 

Why am I bringing up that job?? Because that was the job that made me so passionate in fashion blogging & brought this blog into its peak in 2018/2019. In 2019, as successful as my posts were & the view counts, I was getting were blowing my mind, I was starting to think long term about my career & that's when I started taking online courses to broaden my knowledge in social media, marketing, & leadership.

At that time, I was succeeding in my boutique job, but I knew it wasn't going to be a forever thing & at 21, I wanted to start thinking seriously & long term what I wanted to do. That summer, I made the hard decision to leave that boutique job for an apartment leasing job which also was going to give me not only marketing experience but social media experience as well. 

At 21, I was doing well what crazy 21 year olds do & I wasn't ready to tie down to a long-term career job, so I went back into retail & worked at my local VS which was another fun job & taught me such a different world of fashion while also meeting girls that are still in my life to this day. When lockdown happened in 2020, I started thinking about my long-term career once again. I was out of work for a while because of the pandemic & I dove into full time blogging. 

During that time, I was full time blogging, I was taking online courses in such a wide range of careers because unfortunately the path I wanted to go down wasn't accessible at the time. I went back to work in late 2020 & at that time, I realized my true blogging calling wasn't in fashion, beauty, or lifestyle. It was in Award Show Predicting. It's truly the coolest thing ever!! 

Now that we got my content calling under control, I knew my music & award show content couldn't stay on here forever & I needed to expand my audience. That audience is more into podcasts & that's when, "It's A BOP! with Jess" was born. I was terrified to start the podcast but as time went on, it's seriously my favorite thing in the world which made blogging more on the back burner. I eventually moved my award show content over to a WordPress blog to reach a wider audience (jessicanicoledeleon.wordpress.com).

Flash forward to late 2021/early 2022, I was still in my retail job, consistently podcasting, consistently making award show content, & attending my dream concerts because going a year without attending shows was rough! While my content creating life was going well (I don't consider myself an influencer) & I was proud of that, I began to realize that I was ready to settle down into that long-term career big girl job & that's when my internship fell into my lap.

I've been doing my current internship since March & as I'm typing this 

(it's currently July 1 & I don't know when this is getting uploaded) today was (sadly) my last day. My internship opportunity was such a dream come true & exactly what I needed. I not only learned so much about the business world, but I also learned so much about myself.

The amazing thing about where I was interning at, I got to see a little bit of everything that I was interested in for my future career from event planning, marketing, social media, community outreach, & so much more. Where I was at was PERFECT & even though there were rough days & days that were just plain overwhelming, I am extremely blessed & thankful God brought those people into my life, the connections I made throughout the internship, & giving me such a wide range of experience that would help me further my career.

The internship was originally supposed to be till May but then I didn't want to leave & we were swamped with conventions this summer, so they extended it till July and within that time, I learned even so much more about myself in so many different ways that coming out of this internship, I am overall just a stronger & better person.

I truly was such an emotional wreck today but also felt so bittersweet saying goodbye to the people I met on this journey, but the journey was not supposed to last forever & I needed to move on to my next step (if you see me back with that company, just know I was having attachment issues & wow, I'm so passionate about what that company has to offer).

This past month hasn't been easy just from the fact alone that I got sick with COVID & it's taken me a long time to recover (I'm still recovering) & this month I was applying for jobs, interviewing, & finishing up my internship which physically at times was rough just from how sick I was. The week I tested negative; I did a FaceTime interview with a company that I was supposed to interview with that week before but then I got sick. 

I was so sick during the FaceTime interview & my voice was SO ROUGH but guess what?? I GOT THE JOB!!! I will be doing apartment leasing again but at a complex that I truly love & it's so nice guys!! I can't wait to start showing people this place & get back into selling!! What I love about this complex is not only do I get to lease & sell but I get to work on their social media & reach out to local businesses for outreach which in my internship what I realized is that I'm SOO PASSIONATE about community outreach. It's so interesting!!

I know exciting things are happening in my career but let's talk about what's next for my content creating journey. I will be recording my last 2 podcast episodes for Season 2 of, "It's A BOP! with Jess" & then I'll be going on a month hiatus to kick into this new job & then in August after I attend a concert, I'll be back into podcasting. 

It's also award show predicting season & I did upload my VERY EARLY Grammy's predictions on my WordPress blog so click here to check that out! I also have other predictions on there too as well y'all can look at!

Lately, I've been missing lifestyle blogging & if you haven't noticed, I have been posting a little on here lately. I want to start getting back into the swing of things on here, but my other content is just so time consuming & I'm way more passionate about that stuff that prioritizing this in the middle of all of that is tough!

Hopefully I'll blog again before my 25th birthday on the 10th (it's insane that I'm turning 25) but if I don't, I'm sure y'all will hear about my iconic party somewhere!

Follow me on my social media platforms for more day to day content & I'll see y'all in the next post!

Instagram: jessicanicoledeleon

Twitter: jessnicole997