At the end of every school year, my third-grade teacher had the sweet sendoff tradition of handing out student recognition awards. When Ms. Valdez called my name and announced “best writer” to the class, I approached her desk with a cautious smile. She handed me the certificate and whispered in my ear, “I’m going to see your name on books someday. Keep going.”
I was thrilled. I was also, if I’m being completely honest, a little disappointed… I had my heart absolutely set on best artist (note: I’m sure the girl who won it is a wildly successful painter somewhere, living her best life in the mountains surrounded by canvasses).
I loved to draw. I loved to color. At that age, I even loved acrylic painting. I wanted to create things people could see and feel without needing a single word to explain them.
Apparently, Ms. Valdez had other plans for me.
Somewhere in the back of my eight-year-old mind, an identity was planted that I hadn’t yet recognized but would spend the next twenty-something years proving itself right.
“The Road Less Traveled“
I went to Rutgers planning to become a prosecutor. Maybe a children’s advocate. Definitely something in law, something with weight, something that felt like I owned the room where the stakes were profound. Criminal justice pulled me in completely. The logic of it, the rich history, the moral complexity. I cruised my way to A’s in all relevant classes. The 8am electives were another story entirely (college, you understand).
But somewhere in the midst of studying case law, I caught myself doing something that had little to do with becoming a prosecutor, a toxicologist, or any other budding interests that were emerging. I was lingering on opinions at all hours of the day. The court orders. The written decisions that somehow managed to carry enormous social consequence inside precise, disciplined language. That was the part I couldn’t put down. Not the law itself, but the writing that gave it teeth.
I didn’t end up finishing at Rutgers. My finances made it impossible to stay on campus after my first year, and I was, for lack of a better word, removed. So, I did the only thing that made sense at the time… I wrote my way back. I drafted a formal proposal to claim a financially-independent student status (with the help of a former high school teacher, who will always hold a special place in my heart), submitted it, and waited tables while I waited.
It worked.
I changed course entirely. By then, I knew I wanted to write. At the time, I envisioned late hours typing away for Rolling Stone (shoot for the moon, interview Marilyn Manson). I re-enrolled at Ramapo College, changed my major to Communications with a concentration in Journalism, and something opened up.
It was something that had always been there, but finally had room to grow.
Two disciplines, one obsession
At Ramapo, screenwriting and editorial writing grabbed me simultaneously and never let go. On the surface they couldn’t be more different (one is rooted in definitive structure, dialogue, and character development, the other in clarity, brevity, conviction, and tone). But they make the same demand of any writer: find the truth inside the story, and make someone feel something by the time they’ve finished reading.
I wrote for the college newspaper. I had music and restaurant reviews published in local magazines. I contributed a few editorial pieces to the (then) Huffington Post. I was doing what all writers do: writing constantly, for anyone who would have me, and hustling, hustling, hustling throughout.
During this tumultuous time, I fell in love. We moved into our first apartment together and called it home. I graduated with a B.A. and wrote my first screenplay. Then I wrote another. The recognitions followed: quarterfinalist, semifinalist, finalist, “Top Ten” placements in reputable, sometimes contentious competitions. I was selected into groups like Coverfly, ISA, and the likes, all fairly particular about who gets to join the club. I was honing my craft. The work was real. The interest from A-list actors and the late-night correspondence with their managerial teams (on vastly different time zones) was as beautiful as it was brutal.
But the path that was being pushed — the run-coffee-until-you-break-in, pack-what-you-can-and-move-to-Los-Angeles pipeline — was never one I was willing to chase. Deep down, I knew that. I made peace with it early, before it had the chance to make me feel like I’d missed out on something.
Convergence
After getting married, having our first son, and settling down in a quaint suburb, reality set in (and so did the mortgage payments). When I joined Milberg as a Content Writer, I didn’t walk into my role expecting to find an answer. I expected to do meaningful work and to write well, both of which I did. I led content strategy for one of the country’s leading plaintiff litigation firms. I curated press releases on groundbreaking legal matters, managed website messaging and design instruction, wrote award submissions on behalf of some of the most accomplished attorneys in the country, and spent every day translating dense, complicated legal concepts into language that real people could read, understand, and even act on.
My two passions in life had seamlessly converged.
That work taught me something I carry into every client engagement to this day: the most powerful thing a writer can do is make something complex feel simple, without making it feel small. Legal content written for the public is a masterclass in that. You’re taking case theories, dense documents, and nuanced legal claims and finding the human element to the story within.
The one that makes a person recognize themselves and think, “That’s me. I need to know more. I have to keep reading.” It’s storytelling under constraint. Which, I’ve learned, is where some of my favorite work lives.
A few years and a few promotions later, a startup exec approached me and asked if I could help them build their brand, given how quickly I had established myself at Milberg.
I knew two things immediately. The first was “YES!” This was exactly the kind of creative work I’d been building toward, perhaps without ever realizing it. The second was the quick revelation that followed: I cannot do this alone.
A brand cannot thrive on compelling content. It requires infrastructure and the technical game that makes it deliverable to the masses. It needs someone who thinks in systems and outcomes, someone who understands what happens after the creative lands and the messaging starts flowing.
I knew exactly who that person was.
I called my Milberg teammate on the West Coast.
Austin said, “Let’s do this.”
CAGnite was born.
Destiny
Today, I’m the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of an agency that does something I believe is genuinely rare: it pairs creative strategy and operational discipline at equal weight, without one swallowing the other.
Austin and I are different in almost every professional sense; he thinks in systems and I think in stories, he optimizes where I narrate, he builds the engine and I make people want to get in the car. That contrast is what makes us an incredible team.
I get to build brands. I get to find the real story inside of a business model and figure out how to make other people feel it, and act upon that feeling. I help businesses of all kinds and sizes find their potential and chase it with relentless conviction.
I get to write, create, and lead, and I get to do all of it without having moved to L.A., without losing out on something that has brought me the most joy in my life: family. Seventeen years later, I’m still happily married to the guy I fell in love with and we have two incredibly kind, resilient boys. They are my nucleus.
I’ve built my destiny into my life; these exist in the same place, at the same time. If you know how rare that is, you know exactly how grateful I am for it.
Ms. Valdez handed me a crappy piece of paper in third grade that announced I was the best writer in the class. Who knew that moment of mild, third-grade disappointment would quietly set the stage for everything that followed: the countless stories I’d write, the articles I’d publish, the agency I’d co-found, the brands I’d build, the life I’d construct.
Nearly thirty years later, I think I finally understand that she wasn’t simply telling me what I was good at.
She was telling me what I was destined to become.
Every brand has a story worth telling. I’ve spent my entire life learning how to tell them well.