Part 1: Re-igniting after burnout.
It was the last weekend of 2024, and I finally had some time to myself.
It was the last weekend of 2024, and for once, I had time to myself. No family commitments, no looming deadlines — just a quiet house and the promise of rest after a wild year filled with overtime, milestone events, and social media chaos.
When I woke up Saturday morning, it hit me. Hard. I tried to ‘push through it’ but it was useless. My husband came downstairs after waking from a nightshift to find me on the bathroom floor. I’d had a serious Ménière's attack - vertigo so bad I was vomiting. He asked if I needed to go to the hospital as he helped me to the sofa. I said “No, let me sleep a while first, and we’ll see… but I’m going to need a bucket — now.”
<— This is the reality of a Ménière’s attack — no graceful fade-out, just a hard crash. Without the pretty colors.
I slept for at least 6 hours straight, then most of the remaining weekend. Pretty much a self-induced coma — I could hear activity around me, but I could not interact. I dared not open my eyes. By the time hubby left for his night shift and did the hand-off of Momma care to the daughter, I was slowly beginning to come around.
In reference to my previous post, this was the final straw that led to my decision to do a cease-and-desist on all the crazy overtime.
The cleaning and de-nesting continue, of course… and after pushing too hard, I triggered another minor attack.
But this is where things get interesting.
As I lay there recovering, stripped of energy and clarity, I began to examine not just my body’s exhaustion — but my soul’s.
I say it all the time: It’s not that I don’t like my job, I do. The people are great, I have flexibility and feel like my contribution is valued. I’ve worked in toxic environments and this one ain’t it. Lots to be said for that.
I’ve been producing for almost 40 years. As a Projector, I’m wired to guide, not grind. My battery runs out by 2 p.m., and these days, I’m tapped out.
The other aspect that has turned me off a great deal is the way the entire industry is going. As I observed over the past nearly four decades, many in the business shelved the concept of ethical conduct years ago. While some may be attempting to control the masses through lies and deception, there are still some good people in my world. As a business owner though, it must feel like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack: Locating the pros who ‘get it’, and know that all you want to do is make a meaningful connection with the right people.
These days, the very spirit of humanity has seemingly evaporated from the process. It’s less about connecting people, more about gaining numbers. It feels too… flat. Auto-responding, chat-botting, click-baiting and sound-biting to make a sale. Algorithms and data harvesting, propaganda and emotional manipulation are the tactics-du-jour. It’s just not my rhythm. It’s not for a lot of people.
Don’t get me wrong: I started design with a ruling pen and a drafting table and now I’m playing with AI. I’ve learned (largely self-taught) all the newest tech as it came along and had need to adapt to it. The tools and technology do not intimidate me in the least. It’s the motives of those behind the velvet curtain that cause me dismay. That’s a big reason why I could walk away today and not look back.
That’s when I realized: maybe our problem isn’t the tools — it’s the intent behind them.
Case in point? The client avatar.
Today, people are advised to “create an avatar” of their ideal client. In my mind, I think that’s a cheap knock-off. I understand the other definition of ‘avatar’—a deity manifested as a living creature or human—but the kind of avatar that comes to mind in most cases is a flat, two-dimensional caricature that lacks depth. Humans are more than their demographics, psychographics, socio-graphics or any other ‘graphics’ you care to use. They are souls.
When I was learning this stuff, we were told to paint a portrait of our audience, or our client’s audience as it were. Not physically paint on canvas or paper, but to put that intention, spirit, and mindfulness into these people, to really feel what it is they are seeking. Even if only metaphorically, when you paint a picture, there is a piece of you that is imbued into the work. (When I think of paintings I’ve sold that I know I’ll never see again, it makes me a little sad, honestly.)
That’s when an image dropped into my mind, and wallpapered itself to the inside of my cranium: “The Girl with a Pearl Earring”.
One of Johannes Vermeer’s most famous paintings. I could not get the image out of my head. Anytime I would talk about painting a portrait versus creating an avatar, I cited it as my example. Vermeer’s masterpiece has been appreciated for 360 years! Would any flat-facing ‘avatar’ hold up that well? Much like modern appliances and vehicles, I think not.
Plot twist…
In refreshing my memory of this particular painting, I discovered it is not actually a portrait of a particular person, but what the Dutch called a tronie – the head of an ideal “type,” like “a soldier” or “a musician” – or, in this case, “a young beauty.” Perhaps the most powerful quality of the painting is the mystery of the subject herself. We don’t know who the girl is, or what she’s thinking.
Like the unknown and mysterious “ideal” client, we really can’t know what they’re thinking, or feeling, what they actually look like, what all of the intricacies of their story may be. All we can do is envision, imagine, and pour that energy into our messages, visual and verbal.
I had stumbled upon the O.G. ‘avatar’! Of all the portraits painted over the last 500+ years, by all the masters that have ever lived, THAT was the painting I could not stop thinking about. The one that was not an actual portrait. There was no girl, only an ideal. An image in an artist’s mind.
Unlike today’s concept of a flat, idealized client avatar, Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring radiates mystery and humanity. It’s not a likeness of anyone real, but it evokes feeling, curiosity, presence — the very things marketing has lost in its chase for metrics.
According to Human Design, I’m a Projector — someone who guides rather than produces. When my “Gate of Ideas” opened, it wasn’t a gentle nudge. It was a full-on download. For whatever reason, it pasted that image in my mind, and it got stuck there for months.
And then, in yet another branch of this storyline…
Knowing that as a Projector I am supposed to ‘guide’ humanity, and having come through yet another crushing year of overwork and stress, I knew that it was time to switch things up.
I drifted like a leaf in a windstorm, unsure of where I might land. I could not see what else I could do besides design, branding and marketing, something caught my eye on a social feed. Nik Huno made a post about having a successful guiding business, and he was preparing a training on how he did it.
Serendipity comes through yet again! I put my name on the waitlist and planned for the program’s opening day.
So that’s how I started my January 2025. Wanting to move from marketing and branding to… what? I still didn’t know.
All I had was Vermeer’s image burned into my brain. Being the Projector that ‘picks up’ on waves before they hit the collective, perhaps there’s something there. If I’m feeling fed up by the lack of humanity in marketing and branding, maybe others were feeling it, or would be. I wasn’t even convinced that I wanted to continue on this marketing/branding/business path, or pitch it all and move into the woods where I could paint all day and commune with the trees.
Part 2 will carry on this story. The match may be burned out, but the light will return — in an unexpected way.