Exploring a (professional) identity crisis

Who am I if I'm not "Broke Millennial"?

The sticky, smelly heat of New York City summer is so revolting that many people flee for cooler climates or at least homes with central AC by July. For me, the feeling of always being a little too sweaty and getting hit with drips from window air conditioning units sends a shiver of comforting nostalgia up my spine. The smell of garbage bags roasting on the sidewalk and the furnace blast that greets you when descending to the subway brings flashes of my first month living here 14 years ago. I’m writing to you in disbelief that another New York City summer is here. I have so much to share and have been wrapping my head around how to do it.

It’s been almost two years since I put my fingers to the keyboard and typed a missive to share with you. What’s happened in the time since I’ve written you will be made known in forthcoming newsletters. For now, I’ll say that the slow burn into a hiatus from much of my forward-facing professional life was unintentional.

The summer of 2023 brought multiple, overwhelming changes. Dealing with more than one life changing reality on a personal front made it easy to justify reassessing and narrowing my professional life. I backed away from career-centric tasks that brought me unnecessary angst or did not generate income. Being active on social media (mostly Instagram) and writing a regular newsletter both fell within that category.

I tried to ease back into social media a few times in the late fall and early winter, but within hours I’d see a post that would make me think, “nah, I’m going to opt-out and protect my peace.” Months and then years went by and there’s no denying my sanity felt better for largely staying off of Instagram (both professionally and personally).

Instead, I focused entirely on jobs that resulted in a paycheck, like being a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion or hosting the Money Matters webinar series for the Authors Guild or collaborating with my friend Chelsea Fagan at The Financial Diet on a YouTube series called Asked & Answered.

Pivoting towards paychecks and away from my creating my own content had two-fold results.

Choosing to go silent on social media (and Substack) meant that people started to forget about me. Media inquiries, speaking engagements, and brand partnership deals reduced from a steady flow to a trickle to a drip.

Please pardon this interruption to your reading for me to say hey, hi, hello - I really miss speaking engagements! If you/your company/your university/your conference hires speakers to talk about all things money/personal finance (or millennials) then send me an email!!

While the shift away from social media reduced those opportunities, it gave me space from my “brand” that I’d craved for a while. I’ve been in a professional identity crisis for years. The moniker “Broke Millennial” described my life when I was 23 and started blogging. Then the book series came out and it made the most sense to keep the brand consistent, plus, it was undeniably catchy. Years passed and people would semi-jokingly ask when was I going to rebrand to “Middle Class Millennial” or “Rich Millennial”? I’m 36 now and have spent almost my entire adulthood working under the name Broke Millennial. It has brought me opportunities and financial success, but it is time to grow and move into a professional persona that reflects my reality.

Authenticity, as a way to describe one's work, might be “cringe” (to borrow Gen Z slang). What started as a powerful way to connect with an audience has been largely co-opted and manipulated by major influencers to create a parasocial relationship that feels real to the viewer/reader/follower. However, I’ve realized a significant amount of my work angst was the Sisyphean task of continuing to create content that aligned with “Broke Millennial” but didn’t allow growth for me as a person. Being Broke Millennial started to feel stilted and I felt myself lose much of the magic that had originally attracted folks to read my musings and take my advice.

I still love writing and talking about money, especially when it’s about the intersection between relationships and money. (The fact that my third book – Broke Millennial Talks Money – never took off is still such a pain point for me because there’s just so much guidance for navigating all of life’s complicated, awkward financial conversations.) But I also know that infusing Broke Millennial with stories of my real life is part of what made it captivating. The last few years I’ve shied away from sharing a lot of what was going on with me.

Boy, this would be the perfect moment to reveal some sort of well-crafted rebrand, right?

That’s not what’s going to happen.

Instead, I’m allowing this newsletter to go through its own identity crisis in order to provide me an exploratory phase for what’s next. Honestly, this approach feels more vulnerable than anything I’ve written in years.

What exactly does a professional identity crisis on Substack look like?

It starts with me rebooting the (Un)solicited Advice column. Some weeks I’ll respond to a reader – yes, that makes it solicited advice – and others I’ll be just spouting off on some topic or other. Opinion writing is something I’ve been doing for five years and, frankly, love.

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But I’ve also been jonesing to play around with writing that isn’t beholden to personal finance or money as a through line. I’m particularly interested in essay writing, but I know that my work shines best when I have a focused topic. The other part of this newsletter will be essays exploring an area of culture and my life.

Whether it makes sense to publish weekly and alternate between themes or publish one each per week depends entirely on, well, me. And how many of you submit questions! I’m electing to honor the theme of exploration as this starts and simply feel how it goes.

So, welcome to my professional identity crisis! I hope you’ll stick around to see where it takes us.