One of the best things about quarantine was getting involved in the Recharge and Self Care Society communities because they led me to a beautiful friendship with Katie Becker of One Margarita at a Time. From daily encouragement to someone I can vent to, Katie has been a rock for me this past year. Aside from my personal friendship with her, she is a total boss in her career. Landing a dream job with MYXfitness and launching her own blog! I’m so excited to have you get to know this Career Champion:

1)    Tell us about yourself! How do you describe your career?

I’m Katie! I’m currently living in Stamford, CT where I have been for about 2 years now. I work at MYXfitness, which is an at-home fitness company and I am the Senior Associate of Social Media. I graduated undergrad from Iona College in 2018 and then with my masters degree from Iona College in 2019. Both of my degrees are in marketing. I also played college lacrosse at Iona, which I truly miss everyday. I’m a new dog mama to my adorable mini goldendoodle Leo. I’m a Leo sun, Virgo moon and Pisces rising. 

While my career has not been too long, it has taught me so much. I feel like I am a completely different person than I was when I first started at MYX. I’ve been able to gain confidence in my professional abilities and just learn so much about myself. My Virgo moon is so prevalent in my career. I love to be busy and I am always go, go, go. I’ve always been that way but I’m definitely learning how to take a step back and make time for myself. I’ve found that it is so important to a successful career. I’m all about the details. Having a detailed to-do list and a strict routine makes me feel my best, but I’m also learning to go with the flow a little more and be able to make adjustments in real time. And then of course with a Leo sun I live for human connection and social interaction, which is why a career in marketing has been so fulfilling because it really gives me the ability to work with so many different people and participate in creative brainstorm sessions/just allow my creative side to really shine. That kind of stuff lights me up. 

2)    You’re the Senior Associate of Social Media for MYXfitness. Tell us how you got that role?

Connections and a little luck - lol! Out of college I worked as the Community Coordinator at Athleta in Greenwich CT where I hosted community events and was able to meet a few moms from the Greenwich area. One of the moms told me about a position that opened at MYXfitness (a brand new startup - I mean brand new). I figured it couldn’t hurt to explore the opportunity. The original role I was hired for was the studio manager, but shortly after I was hired our current President was brought on and saw more potential in me than a studio manager. He hired me as the Marketing Coordinator and about a year later I was promoted to Senior Associate of Social Media. 

3)    What does a typical day in your life look like?

I wake up to a lot of puppy kisses (literally how can you be sad when that’s how you wake up!) and then take the pup out and go through my morning routine, which consists of coffee and journaling mainly. I work from home currently so at 9am I jump online and get started. I’m responsible for our social media, blog and influencer marketing so I have various tasks laddering back up to those buckets of marketing. Things such as editing and approving social media content and blog articles, creating briefs for upcoming social content calendars and overseeing the posting across all of our social media platforms. 

While I do enjoy social media and the blog, influencer marketing is where my true passion is. I think it’s an incredible aspect of marketing that is going to continue growing. We’ve worked with about 200 influencers (I was definitely starstruck when we sent a bike to Jordan Rodgers and The Home Edit) so I oversee a lot of the logistics that go into that program. Approving influencers and their content, coordinating the delivery of their bikes and reporting on individual influencer metrics so we can figure out where our “sweet spot” is in the influencer marketing world. I think one of my favorite parts of marketing is that no day looks exactly the same. While I definitely have some tasks that are constant from week to week, new projects or tasks always come up. 

After word (hard stop at 5:15pm - I’ve worked very hard to be comfortable with this) I’ll usually workout and curl up on my couch for a good RHOBH binge. 

4)    What was it like applying to jobs post-grad? Any advice?

It was definitely daunting, I won’t sugar coat that but I think it’s really important to not compare yourself to your friends or acquaintances when trying to find a job out of college. Some people I know found a job so easily, but hated it and quit a few months after. In my opinion, it’s better to be patient and find a job that you love. Otherwise, that transition from college life to work life is going to be tough. I acknowledge that not everyone has that privilege that I did, but if you do I would definitely take advantage.  I took the summer off after college and celebrated my accomplishments in undergrad. That was truly one of my favorite summers to date.

I started applying around early July and landed my job at Athleta in late August. When I found the job posting I felt extremely under qualified but when I went in for the job interview it was apparent that I was actually very qualified for this job, so don’t let a job posting deter you from applying. The worst thing that can happen is they say no! 

5)    You also launched your blog, One Margarita at a Time last year (congrats!). How did you decide to launch a blog?

Ah - yay thank you! So I’ve always wanted to start a blog. I’ve loved writing for as long as I can remember and have just wanted to share that with people. I (like many others) would find 100 reasons why starting a blog was a bad idea, so I never did it. In quarantine I was reading a book and it said “If not now, then when?” and that resonated with me so much that I bought my domain and created the blog the next morning. 

I think it’s important to call out too that overtime your passions may change. While I still enjoy blogging I’ve found that actually getting to Zoom (for now!) or eventually meeting up IRL and talk with people about topics that matter to us is really a passion of mine, so I’m exploring options other than blogging to fill that passion. I felt kind of like a failure at first when I realized that I had new interests, but through conversations with many people I realized that this is completely normal. We are meant to evolve and our interests will change as that happens!

6)    How do you balance both a corporate career and your blog?

 Oh, gosh. Not well sometimes to be honest. My job is extremely demanding and I used to be that girl who worked till 8pm every night. It wasn’t serving me and I was having breakdowns like once a month about how stressed I was. I finally set the boundary of a 9am start time and a 5pm stop time, which has allowed me to focus more on hobbies of mine, like blogging! 

Because I do work full time, it’s important that I’m not too hard on myself. When I first launched, I wanted to put out two articles a week. It quickly became clear to me that was not sustainable, so I scaled back on the amount of blogs. Now I kind of just write when I am feeling called to or have a certain topic I really feel needs to be explored. It takes the pressure off so much! If you are stressed out by your hobbies then I think you need to take a step back and reignite that spark you used to have with it. I’m an extremely social person and live for a good happy hour with my friends. I felt like I was compromising that to write and it made me resentful of blogging. Now that I give myself the freedom to write when I want to, it has made a world of difference. 

7)    What is the biggest challenge in your career right now? Proudest/most impactful moment?

My biggest challenge right now is finding my voice. As a young professional I sometimes feel pressure to be liked by everyone and that can lead to people not taking me as seriously as I would like. I’m really working with my boss right now to be firm and seen as a leader by my coworkers and other companies we work with, while also remaining respectful. It’s definitely a hard balance and as someone who naturally avoids conflict it’s been tough but in the past month I’ve definitely seen an improvement. It also really helps to have a supportive boss who is invested in my growth. 

My proudest moment was very recently when our company merged with Beachbody. I have been with MYX since the very, very beginning. I have worked some extremely obscure jobs (I used to literally pick up laundry and wash water bottles for our coaches - someone had to do it!) because in the beginning we were a team of maybe five people. I just felt overwhelming pride knowing that my efforts and perseverance within this company led to such a huge milestone for all of us. I’m excited to see what my next milestone is! 

8)    What advice would you give a young woman going into corporate/her career?

Advocate for yourself. This has taken me some time to realize, but every time I stand up for myself or advocate for myself, it works out well. Do so politely, but get what you deserve. 

9)    Where do you see your career going in the next few years? What’s your big aspiration?

Honestly, I’m not really sure. I’m a huge planner so the fact that I don’t have every step to my career planned out is actually very surprising. I really like influencer marketing and would love to continue doing that, but the rest I’m kind of just going with the flow. I’m really passionate about mental health so if I was able to do something with that I would absolutely jump on that opportunity. 

With One Marg I really want to launch a podcast - if anyone knows how to do that … let me know. 

10) How do you find inspiration?

I’m inspired by SO many incredible women who I have been able to connect with in the past year. It’s easy to compare yourself to others and see someone’s success as your failure. I used to have that mentality and while I certainly still fall into the comparison trap from time to time, I now see someone else's success as my inspiration. When I see one of my friends do something great it’s like that push I need to get creative and inspired myself. 

I definitely feel like I vibe off of other people’s energy so detoxing social media was huge for me. I’ve muted or unfollowed a lot of people simply because their energy doesn’t match what I want mine to be. So I really focus now on only following or interacting with accounts that bring me joy (thank u Marie Kondo) so every time I click on my Instagram app I feel inspired. Also, shout out to Self Care Society for teaching me that :) 

11) Who is your role model?

 My role model is 100% my grandmother who I unfortunately lost back in 2019. She was the inspiration behind my blog. She was SO sure of herself and carried herself in a way that people always respected her and what she had to say. She was confident and able to tell you how it is while also always being the life of the party. I’ve done tarot readings with Kate Van Horn before and we would always talk about my grandma and the energy that she carried. I aspire to be as badass and well respected as she was. 

I have a note on my mirror from her that reads, “Life ain’t always easy and frankly sometimes it sucks. Keep your chin up and keep going. Winners don’t quit at anything and you are a winner.” There are many days where I don’t even notice it, but some days it catches my eye and I always feel like it’s her saying, “You go girl.”

12) How are you embracing your career in 2021?

By not apologizing for taking up space!!! Both in my career and in life in general. I can be loud and I can be opinionated. I used to tell myself, “Why did you speak up there? If only you were more quiet and reserved or more like “X” person you would be liked.” But that’s canceled. I’m proud of who I am and I’m proud of my ability to speak up for things that matter to me. Instead of putting myself down, I’m celebrating that. 

Rapid Fire:

Favorite self-care act: journaling

Favorite workout: Recharge Classes!!

Favorite happy hour drink: margarita, duh

Favorite snack: goldfish

Favorite movie: Bridesmaids

Spend a Friday night: with a glass of wine and RHOBH

Literally a girl after my own heart! Don’t forget to follow Katie at @onemargatatime on Instagram!