Abandoning My Career of 12 Years

Choosing my dreams and goals for @ASFVISION and Motherhood

Them: “What are your career goals?”

Me: “To work for you long enough that I can someday work for myself”

Year after year this was the conversation at annual career review meetings. I want to work for myself. I want to build something that matters. This was my dream but it was also a goal that I’ve fought for at times not knowing how it would turn out.. Or if it ever would turn out..

Building of the Brand

It all started back in Brooklyn. The year was 2018. Anthony and I had just started dating and traveling the world together. My work has always been remote so I made sure to bring my job with me on all our adventures. For years this job had funded my lifestyle affording me the opportunity to live in places like Denver, San Francisco, Barcelona, Thailand, Ukraine(!) and more all while remaining employed. As Anthony entered my life his goals were fully set on the Paralympics while booking speaking jobs as he was able to. He had a personal Facebook page and completed all his music and public speaking gigs himself with word of mouth calls and text messages. Anthony and I had only recently started intertwining our lives together and I didn’t want to invest too much time into a “boyfriend”. I agreed to help him pick a business name, buy the website domain, start his social media pages and launch his website. After several domain searches we landed on “ASFVISION” (Anthony’s initials, Anthony Simon Ferraro and vision to subtly highlight his blindness). Shortly after all socials were launched under “@asfvision” and the website at www.asfvision.com.

Setting the Framework for Departure

Fast-forward to January 2021. We had just returned home from our first Blind Busking Tour driving 10,000 miles from New Jersey to California and back. We made our first TikTok and the social channels were starting to figure out “who” Anthony Ferraro was after all. The influx of growth that year brought lots of opportunities all while we were planning our wedding to happen in October. We kept our heads down and continued to be diligent and make videos daily about Anthony’s life as a blind person. After our wedding day we made what we thought was a normal video, like we always do, but this time it was a montage of our wedding day with a voice over where Anthony mentioned my tactile wedding dress. That was it. A reporter at USA Today caught wind of the tactile dress mention and ran the first of many stories around the dress and our magical day. That’s when we both started to realize what we were building with ASFVISION was more than a one time viral thing. As this was all happening, I remained at my job finding a way to balance things effortlessly.. For now.

Testing the Waters but Scared to Jump In

July 2023 and our first child was on the way and I was offered an unlimited maternity leave and took off for 10 months from that job. Funny thing is I never skipped a beat with our work at ASFVISION. I experienced what it was like to live without my former paycheck and all the hours in the day that were returned to me. As I grew scared about all the what-if’s and financial ups and downs I decided to go “back to work” part time. Since my job had always been paid on the basis of logged hours vs. a salary it always has provided me with a ton of flexibility and freedom. I was taking full advantage of this and some weeks I would literally only log 5 hours. It was adding too much stress because I wanted to do a good job there and at ASFVISION but I wanted to be a Mom too!

The Time is Now

In August 2024 we were invited to the Olympics in Paris for an adaptive Skateboarding demo. It’s ironic we ended up at the Olympics on a Skateboard instead of the Paralympics in a Judo Gi but sometimes that is how life goes. I took off work for 2 weeks and we stayed in France driving around exploring with our daughter. The stress I was feeling to be a good worker, a good and FUN mother, a good wife, a good filmer, editor, producer, writer, etc. was too much to have it not be all for us. For what we started building in the warehouse back in Brooklyn to where we were now has been unimaginable. What could come next if we really both went all in?

Motherhood Alone is Enough

I should dedicate a separate piece to the topic of “the working mother” and the overwhelming feelings I have about “leaving my career” to “just be a Mom”. What’s ironic is I am not actually leaving my career. My career is what got me here. Building software and apps for 10+ years before beginning to communicate with them with videos we created. It all came from my experience. Invoicing, contracting, negotiation, bookings, PR, marketing, all of it was my own learned experience. The best part is now I get to continue learning and building with the person I love more than anyone in the world, ANTHONY! To think I am leaving my career discredits the 12 years I invested in my job and myself. I am proud of everything I have worked for which has brought me to a place that I can work with and for my family. My title as Director of Operations may change but I am a Mother now for life. The time to jump in and chase my dreams of writing and building something special is now. These moments are ours and I hope we choose to embrace what we are blessed to have.

Does that mean I am without fear. Absolutely not. I have never been so sure and so unsure of a decision in my entire life. It’s hard to remember this is what I have been working for as it’s starring me right in the face. But this was not just a dream, it was a goal. I owe it to myself to keep fighting for this goal and figure out how it will turn out after all..

Thanks for reading and ONE LOVE!