Rebuild, Release, SNL50, PRs, Doechii

Friends,

Thank you all of your lovely replies to last week’s debut newsletter. I’m still getting around to responding. I will, I promise. Now on to this week’s Five…

1️⃣ Rebuild

Last Friday, I clicked on the button in Squarespace that initiates building a new website. I sifted through the templates earmarked for personal brand and CV sites, made a choice, and got ready to “drag and drop.” It had been so long since I built something new on Squarespace, there was an entirely new back end. I spent 20 minutes attempting to set up a homepage, couldn’t get a grasp on how everything worked, yelled at my computer and shut it down.

I started fresh on Monday, took many more deep breaths, chose a different template and just went for it. The result is a very simple, straightforward, resume-focused website: https://hillaryrea.com.

Once I set the website to go live, I had to figure out to forward my old website URL to a hidden tribute page on the new site. It took another hour or so, and a bunch of testing, and I could not figure out the redirect. It turned out I just needed to be patient. By the time I woke up the next morning, everything was good to go. I had taken all of the right technical steps, it just needed time to calibrate.

While I’ve been applying to jobs week after week without a personal website, it feels like this week was a clean slate in terms of my online presence, and how I can highlight the work I’ve done in a way that translates to recruiters and hiring software bots (ugh!).

2️⃣ Release

At the end of January I made the decision to fully sunset Tell Me A Story after trying to let it run in the background while I searched for new work, new direction, and a new purpose. TMAS was over long before this, but I was still gripping on to all of the hard work, milestones, struggles, and a little bit of hope that I could still keep going with it.

But what I really needed to do was let it go.

Closing down the website and writing it’s “in memoriam”/tribute page was the final release I needed.

And funnily enough, it’s much easier to write cover letters for new jobs speaking about my work in the past tense. The ellipses are gone, there is completion. I feel so much lighter and hopeful for the future.

I have no clue what’s next for me. But I’m ready and excited for what’s to come.

3️⃣ SNL50

Though there are no talks of “holding space”, the press tour for SNL50 is as delightful as Wicked’s.

Highlights include:

✨ This segment from Watch What Happens Live where the lady legends of SNL reenact the sprinter van scene from this season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

✨ Ladies and Gentleman: 50 Years of SNL Music, specifically the first seven and half minutes, which you can watch here.

✨ The Studio 8H Architectural Digest tour.

✨ Mikey Day crashing a mini bronco on TODAY with Jenna & Friends.

4️⃣ PR

It wasn’t until I grew obsessed with Orange Theory fitness that I heard the term “PR”. In their world, PR stands for personal record and refers to any fitness milestone that you reach in class that beats out your last time or distance benchmark. In the last four weeks, I PR’d my one mile run, 2000 meter row, 500 meter row, and 12 minute run for distance. This feels like a big accomplishment and it’s also inspiring me to look at other areas of my life to see what I have PR’d there. Stay tuned for future insights…

5️⃣ Doechii

I knew her name, but did not know her music until the Grammy’s. And then I watched her Tiny Desk concert and was blown away.

If you want even more Tiny Desk, watch Chappel’s too.

I should share that I am having a blast writing The Five. And I think so much of this has to do with letting go of The Speak Up. Release! With the release, I did let go of all of my previous newsletter subscribers. Thank you for going the extra mile to subscribe to The Five! If you know of anyone who might want to join in, please forward this email to them.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,

Hillary