I’m very familiar with my tendency to overthink and over plan. It’s what has made me a really good event manager. It’s a role I often fall back into because the skills necessary to do the job well come really naturally to me. In fact, I’ve been told that my events are some of the most seamless experiences guests have had. No detail is unthought of.

I pride myself on my attention to detail.

When I’m working on plans for whatever the thing is — thinking up new projects, figuring out the future, planning an event — my high-intensity, internal detail energy fires. My mind jumps around, copious notes are taken, spreadsheets become epic along with what become project plans.

Since I left my stable, secure nonprofit job over 3 months ago, I have landed in the deep end of research and information consumption! In addition to trying to figure out how to start a business without a business background, I have been working my butt off in the space of side hustling. I’m doing everything from researching every possible way to earn passive income to contacting my old freelance clients.

What’s been interesting is learning about all the new ways there are to earn income. When I hustled back in 2012, 13 and 14, I was doing hands-on work for different people. Events management, airport greeting for VIP clients of my client, catering, floral design and stuff along those outward-facing lines of work.

For the past 9 1/2 months I’ve been digging deep to uncover the path I want to take next. I have a background in freelancing so since I left my stable, nonprofit professional career back in July, I naturally slipped right back into the hustle.

To be clear, before I left my job I did secure a 6 month contract that would provide me with steady part-time income for the remainder of the year. This was new for me because 5 years ago I would have easily left without a plan or net in place. I’m in the middle of the project right now that happens to be all about supporting business owners of color.