Serenity interviews Melissa Cassera, a screenwriter, author, and publicity strategist, who introduces herself as a girl who has lots of obsessions. Melissa wants us all to celebrate something every single day, specifically something we accomplished. She offers advice about knowing what you want to do and applying it at a high level in many different ways, describing how she is a storyteller, which plays out in her publicity work, her screenwriting, and her books. Melissa's final advice is to put ourselves in positions to lose, or to be a beginner, because it will make us unflappable in the face of any rejection. Melissa's conversation is packed with advice for learning to validate ourselves, trust our gut, and discover who we are outside of any specific type of work.

Chapters

2:08 Melissa describes herself as a storyteller, which plays out in many ways

5:10 How Melissa's work history mattered when she started screenwriting

5:58 Knowing what you want to do and finding adjacencies

10:00 Celebrate something. Every Day.

14:07 Our wish: work optional

21:11 Melissa starts a business and returns to acting to help fund it

27:19 From the casting chair, Melissa tells us all: It is not personal

29:40 Melissa's quitting story: leaving pharmaceuticals to start a business

34:35 Getting free of the need for external validation

42:24 When to question whether you've tied your identity to the wrong thing

50:42 What you accomplish is good enough and it absolutely counts

55:28 Melissa's podcast about having multiple income streams

1:02:27 It Worked For Me: Put yourself in a position to lose and always be a beginner

Links

Melissa Cassera (website)

Drip Trickle Flow Flood (Melissa's podcast)

Other things we reference in this episode: Work Optional, a book by Tanja Hester

I Do This For a Living is independently produced.

@serenitylive