What do you do?
I’m the Assistant Director at the Downtown Bellingham Partnership. I started a small business in 2012 called the Good Time Girls with a business partner and created a tour exploring the seedier side of women’s history in Bellingham and vice in general called the Sin & Gin Tour in 2012. We opened a gift shop selling local artisan’s work called The Bureau for three years until I got into the idea of working more directly for the community. The tour is still going strong under new ownership and I am happily working to support Downtown as a cultural and economic force in the city.
Advice/words of wisdom that affected your life you’d like to pass on?
I find that the harder I work to do no harm but also take no shit from others, the better results I get on a personal and professional level. There really is no better advice that I have received or find to be as universally true as that. Women in particular receive so many mixed messages about how to behave and where to find inspiration and motivation. Being nice all the time and putting others before ourselves is not the answer to a happier life or a successful career. Finding and asserting our boundaries while at the same time, allowing others to be as autonomous and free to pursue their own path in life breeds mutual respect.