Sydni Spencer

I definitely attribute my success to my parents. I think that they are very successful in their own ways, and success looks differently for everyone, so it's not like they were forcing my sister and I to go down one path, but to be successful and to be great at whatever it is we chose to do was always just the standard in my household. Looking back, I definitely feel like I get a lot of my positive attributes when it comes to my drive, my intentionality around things, my creativity, and just always striving to be better and continue to grow, and that's definitely all thanks to them.

The best career advice I can share is really about building your personal brand. I've been trying to hone in on this my whole career, especially being in the field of digital marketing and storytelling. It's about doing the back work of figuring out who you are as a professional, and then laying that as the groundwork and building upon that. Really being confident in what your brand is and being able to sell yourself has been super important for me, especially in this time of transition. This job market is like no other, so if you have a really good handle on who you are and your abilities to market that and sell yourself, it definitely goes a long way, especially when you're looking for roles.

I would say really take the time to figure out who you are. Obviously that happens over time, and there were roles that I took that, looking back on, I don't really know why I took that role. But it's kind of twofold: one, don't be afraid to try new things and take different opportunities, because it will all kind of work together to help shape who you are, and help you understand what you do like in positions and what you don't like. But also do the work on yourself to really understand who you are in this space, because being a woman in this space, and then added to that for me personally, being a woman of color in the space of sports specifically, but also just in the corporate world in general, can be super challenging. A lot of us can feel like imposter syndrome, so I think if you can do the groundwork of building a lot of confidence around just who you are and how you show up in these rooms, it can definitely make those opportunities once you land them a little bit easier. And even in the photography business, having the confidence to stay in your own lane and not compare, because everybody has a different style, especially anything creative. There's nothing that's really the right or wrong, so trying not to compare to other photographers, other creatives, and just staying in your own lane and being confident with what you're building is super important.

The biggest challenge I'm facing right now is this current season of being laid off. It has been super challenging and frustrating to have no control over your career, and external things happen, and you just kind of fall by the wayside, unfortunately, because of those events that take place. Trying to stay positive in this job search has been difficult. You hear a lot of no's, as I'm sure anybody else who's in this job search could understand. Just trusting that it is going to work out how it's supposed to work out at some point, when it's supposed to work out, has been super challenging. Having the stamina to keep applying, and keep hearing potential no's, and the interviewing, it's just like a full-time job in itself. As far as opportunities, I think I'm still very young in my industry, both the corporate, more professional side of things, and also my photography. I was coming to a point in my previous role anyways where I kind of knew that it was time for growth in some way, so the act of being laid off just expedited that. I'm definitely looking forward to finding my next opportunity and being able to grow just as a professional in that space. Photography-wise, there's definitely a lot of room to grow. I have a lot of weddings coming up, bigger bookings coming up, and the potential for this to turn into more of a full-time source of income, which is super exciting.

I'm definitely a people person, so I'm not somebody who just goes to work and goes with my head down and does my work. I really love to learn about people, I value people for who they are, if they have kids, if they have whoever that is important to them, I want to make sure that I make it a point to talk about those things and make people feel like they're heard and seen, so that's super important to me. Family is a big value of mine. I have an older sister, my nephew who's 2, and I still live at home with my two parents, so we're all a very close-knit family. I would say those are my top two values, like friends and family. Just trying to live a balanced lifestyle, so friends and family, all those things are super important as well.