Welcome to Make life easy, Breezi.

Your friend who sends you a weekly update on what she's working on, reading through, and thinking about – in a list.

The number one rule to career planning

1. Do not plan your career

Wait what, why shouldn't you plan your career?

1. First, you probably haven't taken time to figure out who you truly are – you've been told to follow your passion, but you don’t feel especially passionate about anything. Or you've been told to let your strengths guide you, but you're not sure what you're best at. You may have felt they had answers in the past but now you're no longer sure who you are or where you're going.

2. Also, you likely don't know what you truly want – is it money, is it status, is it impact, is it fulfillment, is it the ability to work from a remote island in Bali, while being camera off on a Zoom call or is it simply making your parents proud of you? What is it that you're actually craving from your career?

3. Lastly, you certainly don't know what the world will be like in years time – roles will change, industries will change, the world will change, and you can’t possibly predict any of it – so "planning" could actually end up being "limiting"

I've never planned my career, and you can tell because here's my resume in a list

• Age 9-11: Papergirl for the Toronto Daily Star

• Age 15: Drive-through cashier at McDonald's

• Age 16: Waitress at a sports bar

• Age 17: Barista at Starbucks

• Age 18: Marketing/ Ops Intern and two tech startups (during Seed + Series A)

• Age 20: Management Consultant at Accenture

• Age 21-22: Growth Marketing/ first employee at DTC beauty startup

• Age 23: Growth Marketing Consultant

• Age 24: Founder

But through this, I landed on 3 career non-negotiable's

1. An attitude of "moving fast and ship things" – I thrive off of quick decision making and need to be in an environment where making mistakes are welcomed, as long as we learn from it

2. Surrounded by people I respect, trust and admire – Don't underestimate the impact of being surrounded by the right (or wrong) people will have on you and your life

3. My fulfillment has to come from the daily work, not from a potential future outcome – this is a new learning from me as I embark on this founder journey

The best articles I read this week on choosing the right/ wrong career

• Pmarca Guide to Career Planning: Opportunity

• How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)

• Planning: Re-framing the ‘Five Year Plan’ 

Top 5 most impactful quotes from How To Pick A Career (That Actually Fits You)*

*This article is a literal 20,000 word essay so here's me saving you some time

1. "When scientists study people on their deathbeds, they usually find that many of them feel some serious regrets. I think a lot of those regrets stem from the fact that most of us aren’t really taught about path-making in our childhoods, and most of us also don’t get much better at path-making as adults, which leaves many people looking back on a life path that didn’t really make sense, given who they are and the world they lived in"

2. "If you’re not currently working towards that career you supposedly yearn for, try to figure out why not. If you think it’s because you’re afraid of failing, unpack that. Perhaps you don’t really think it’s fear of failure that’s stopping you, but something else. Maybe it’s a dread of the change in identity—both internally and externally—that inevitably accompanies a career move like this. Maybe it’s the intense resistance to change"

3. "Chasing happiness is an amateur move. A better goal is contentment: the satisfying feeling that you’re currently taking the best crack you can at a good life path; that what you’re working on might prove to be a piece of an eventual puzzle you can feel really proud of"

4. "Looking back on my path so far, the mistakes that bother me most are the ones that happened because someone else took the wheel of my head and overruled the quiet, insecure voice of my authentic self—the mistakes that I knew at the time, deep down, were wrong. My goal for the future isn’t to avoid mistakes, it’s for the mistakes I do make to be my own"

5. "If you’re on a career dot that, when you’re being really honest with yourself, feels right, you get to stop thinking and stop planning for a while and just dig in. These moments don’t always last that long, so sink your teeth in. Put everything you’ve got into the dot you’ve chosen. As far as you know, you might be Michael Jordan holding his first basketball, so start playing"

Things I did this week in my founder journey

1. Applied to 5 different accelerators for early/ pre-seed startups

2. Working on the first version of the Breezi Pitch Deck (it was 29 slides long ...)

3. Cried multiple times

The 8 slide pitch deck framework that I'm going to follow

1. What's the biggest fear/ problem/ pain point

2. But wait, there's hope for us

3. This is what life could look like in the future

4. And this is how we're going to get there

5. Oh yeah, I'm building that, here it is

6. Here's the problem we're solving

7. This is how much better the world will be w/ it

8. I'm Lillie btw, great to meet you

Additional advice and learnings for anyone who's working on a deck

• The first draft is always the hardest, just get it done

• Even if you know it's not great – send it to your mentors, colleagues and other founders for feedback

• Slide titles are everything, make sure that they communicate your vision and actions

• You should be able to take all the slide titles, put them next to each other and read it as if it's a paragraph communicating your thesis

• After sending my deck around, I realized only 3-4 slides in that 29-page deck were gems

• Now it's my job to take those gems and polish them so they shine

Twitter tweets + threads I think everyone should read this week

• How to run a strong fundraising process

• Remember this as you meet your first VCs

• Consumer companies disrupting spaces where shitty products/processes were the norm

• On the relationship between vision + building consumer

• If you’re a woman, do the opposite of most advice you’ve been given

Now tell us why you cried 3 times this week

1. Too much to do, not enough time

2. Got my first rejection from an accelerator I applied to

3. Felt an immense amount of gratitude for my parents and their support

Today is my dad's 52nd birthday and I'd love to introduce him to you briefly

• His name is Allan and he's an electrical engineer (by day ...)

• For the last 10 years, he's been travelling and playing in blackjack and baccarat tournaments around the world

• He taught me how to take calculated risks, never let your emotions get the best of you and always place bets on yourself

• He never says "I love you"

• But whenever I come home, he'll take my car keys and make sure my tank is full by the time I leave – every. single. time.

• He's just the best

Building a startup is really hard, here's a list of people who've helped + supported me a ton this week

• Daniel 

• Brooke

• Kevin

• Janice

• Tommy

• Arjun

• Derek

And in case no one told you

What to look forward to in the next newsletter

• Social media predictions for 2033

• How to find motivation when you're struggling

• The current state of my love life

If you found anything in this newsletter helpful, I'd love to connect on Twitter – tweet me a screenshot of your favorite part and let's chat 👋

I'll be back next week with more lists!