Name: Lauren Herpich
Location: California
Company: Why Not Girl!
Professional Industry: Online Publishing
Job Title: Founder & Chief Why Not Girl!
WIXII-ISM™ FROM LAUREN HERPICH:
“Whether you are leaning in, opting out or saying Why Not!, only you know what type of life you want to live. I am so glad that the conversation of women in the workplace and work/life balance has become major topics of conversation this year. It proves something that I’ve been feeling for my entire professional life – there may be a conflict between breaking through the glass ceiling and having the life that you want. Again, I believe it comes down to being true to who you are and what you want out of life. That’s what matters.”
LAUREN’S STORY:
Meet our featured Wixii™, Lauren McCabe Herpich. She is in her early 30s. She received a Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University as well as Bachelors in Journalism and Media Arts from the University of Arizona. Currently, Lauren is the Founder and Chief Why Not Girl! of Why Not Girl! in the online publishing industry. She and her husband Chris currently live in Berkeley, CA with their cute betta fish Grappe. The couple met on Match.com in early 2010 and spent their first date playing Battleship at a local Chicago pub known for board games. Lauren and Chris were married last year during a very Why Not! destination wedding in Napa and then honeymooned in Australia where they climbed the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge and cuddled with a koala.
LAUREN’S CAREER PATH:
My professional life has definitely been an adventure filled with what I like to call Why Nots!.: from pursuing college internships by cold calling Washington DC news bureaus, to applying for fellowships I thought I had absolutely no chance in ever getting, to taking a severance package and heading to Europe for a month. My career has been an exciting ride. I started in television news working as a segment producer for a now-canceled daily political show. After covering the 2004 presidential election, I learned that life on the road and needing to react to the spontaneity of the news was not what I wanted long term. So, I took my communications skills to the other side and began pursuing a career in marketing and communications. After ten years that included a layoff, getting my masters, relocation (twice!) and marriage, I’m realizing that entrepreneurship is where I belong. I started my own website and emerging multimedia lifestyle brand called Why Not Girl!. I hope to empower more adult women to get inspired and get out there by taking chances, try new things and live life to the fullest.
With that, there are still thoughts on how to find work-life balance. I honestly don’t think that goes away when you become an entrepreneur. In fact, I sometimes think you focus on it more. Right now, my husband and I are working to build a life that will hopefully give us options if we do decide to grow our family.
LAUREN’S MINDSET AND WORK-LIFE MIX:
My mindset honestly depends on the day. As I am living this new-found entrepreneurial life, I’m learning that each day has its ups and downs. But, that’s just the short-term view. In seeing the forest through the trees, I know that life is precious and it is short. But that means that we need to seize every moment we can and just live. Why Not Girl!’s purpose shares that the moves need not be grand, like jumping out of a plane, running a marathon, or quitting your job to start your own business to conquer life. Rather, it is about knowing yourself, knowing your boundaries and your dreams and living without regrets. When all is said and done, I want to look back and think that I took every opportunity I could to say Why Not! to the life that I want to live.
Since I do work out of my house, it can be difficult to put up boundaries between work, play and the rest of it (i.e. doing laundry and cleaning the house). However, what I find is if I scheduling everything out as if I were back in college, I can do a better job in getting everything that I need to get done, done, and still have time to have lunch on the proverbial quad or take a break in between classes. Fortunately, because I had been a student who always had a full class load, plus a thousand activities, helped me prepare for this.
Please share your favorite efficiencies and timesavers.
I try to use up the battery life on my laptop as a way of forcing myself to take a break in between activities. So, if I know that my battery lasts for 2 1/2 hours, I know that I have 2 1/2 hours to get work done before I need to recharge – both my computer and my brain. I’ll use that time (typically an hour) to get lunch, get some housework done or exercise. You definitely need to get up and moving. Depending on the weekend, I take at least one day off from all technology. As someone who is building a website and who has a background in digital marketing, it may be amusing to hear that I have absolutely no problem in shutting it off. But I really don’t. Spending a day hiking, camping or bike riding with my husband, without the presence of my iPhone, is very much the perfect day.
What advice would you give an earlier version of yourself?
Be true to yourself. I’ll be honest when I say that I got a little caught up in what others thought of me. I went into television news, more because I thought it impressed people, than because I actual really enjoyed the work. Remember that no one is living your life other than you, so be honest with what you want to do and go from there. That being said, however, I do think there is something to say about having better financial education in terms of the realities of money when we are younger. I absolutely believe in following your passions, but there is also something to say about building a career and having financial stability. Understand what type of lifestyle you want to live and figure out ways that you can achieve it.
Lauren shares the Why Not Girl! mission.
Like many women, it took me a while to realize that I was in fact a Why Not Girl!. As I was approaching my 30th birthday while a graduate student at Northwestern University, I was evaluating what was making me happy and proud of who I had become. I realized that it was not material things or the prominent title at work, but the multitude of life experiences that I was so fortunate to have had.
I couldn’t find one club or organization where I could share in a wide variety of adventures with other women across multiple stages of life. Everything was so compartmentalized: sports, art, food, mom, singleton. So I launched Why Not Girl! in 2012 as a website that serves to empower women to try something new and feel accomplished no matter what your age or interest.
My goal is for Why Not Girl! to be motivational online-to-offline resource that not only provides women inspiration to get out there through our Why Not Girl! of the Week profiles or related Why Not! Five Lists, but also provides opportunities to actually sign up for activities they can take part in.
