Do I Have Time for Sky Society Accelerator?

Most Sky Society Accelerator students are also in school, working full-time, are moms, founders, or...  doing several at once. Meet Lauryn Cammon Grant, Accelerator graduate and master of multi-tasking. 

Lauryn took on the Accelerator with a busy schedule to start, knowing it would help her find clarity and direction in where she was going next.

Lauryn had a full-time job in HR where she was questioning if she was in the right career. In pursuit of something more, she'd started an MBA while running a business with her mom that had weekend pop-ups almost every week. She realized she was a natural at marketing and absolutely loved it, so she took a chance and applied to Sky Society Accelerator.

When she got in, she couldn't believe it, asking herself, "Can I really take this on with everything else going on?" But she knew being accepted wasn't a coincidence. She took it as a sign that now was the time.

What Her Schedule Looked Like

Lauryn will be the first to admit it: "That schedule looked insane. It was like, okay, a little bit over here, a little bit over here. I was literally juggling everything."

Her actual schedule: work from 7 or 8 in the morning until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, then straight into either an Accelerator assignment or an MBA assignment as soon as she got home. "I had my laptop, iPad, and phone all working on different things. It was like, okay, an hour where I'm going to do this, an hour where I'm going to do that."

"It was a lot of late nights, early mornings. It was crazy. It was definitely crazy."

What Made It Possible

She leaned hard on structure instead of willpower: "I'm very big on, if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. So everything went in my calendar." She didn't pretend it was easy. "There were days where I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to do this." But she kept a pattern she trusted: finish the hard thing, then look back and realize it was survivable. "Every time I do something that's really, really hard and I finish it and complete it with success, I look back and I'm like, oh, that was nothing."

The Outcome

The payoff wasn't just finishing the Accelerator, it was the clarity that came out the other side. Lauryn didn't just complete eight weeks and move on; she used what she learned to make a real decisions about where she wanted to go in her career. After the Accelerator, she switched her entire master's program from an MBA to a Master's in Marketing, and finished it in just a few months. "A lot of the stuff that I learned, I learned in Sky Society. I wasn't going to be able to grasp so much so fast if I didn't have that foundation."

She's now busy with direction now instead of busy trying to figure things out. She knows what kind of marketing she wants to do, what she's good at, and what she's not willing to settle for in a job. She runs marketing at her own company more efficiently, walks into interviews more confident, and finally knows what she's working towards. 

"It was hard to do it all at once, but so worth it. The end result is always the most rewarding."

Her Advice To Busy Girlies

"Forget about any doubt you have in your head, and literally just do it. Eight weeks seems like such a long time, but it literally goes by in five seconds. You will figure it out along the way and what you gain makes it all worth it."

Lauryn's favorite career affirmation: "Just do it. You will figure it out along the way." She keeps a sign on her desk that reads: Everything is figureoutable.

Her practical advise going into the Accelerator: know your deadlines the moment you get them, put them on your calendar immediately, and protect blocks of time like appointments rather than hoping you'll "find time" later. "If I had class on a Monday, my assignment was due on Wednesday. So I need to make sure I'm either doing the assignment as soon as I get off the computer on Monday, or I'm doing it that Tuesday." Lauryn is such a star in the Sky Society Accelerator community, a real representation of "there's no better time than now."

Lauryn's Marketing Girly Essentials

Go-to beauty product: Lip gloss, always. Her rotation runs through the Maybelline Lifter Gel, e.l.f. staples, and Kylie's Gloss Drip. "The glossiest lip gloss on the planet that is not sticky."

Favorite brand: A close tie between Bloom and EOS. 

Coffee order: Coffee, no contest, though Bloom Energy and a Cherry Slush Alani are close behind. "Coffee has my heart."