The Capstone of My Content Creator Career (and Why I Am Doing an Ivey MBA)

There is more to me, more in me that wants to blossom. 

In many ways, my work at Experience Niagara was the capstone of all my years as a content creator, which in the professional world, turned into a career as digital marketer, a creative director and creative producer. 

But as I know that it is time to turn the page for a new leaf, because there isn’t much else that I have done in this realm that I wanted to do and haven’t yet done.

I did it all. 

I was a Youtuber, for my own channels and for a few companies. 

I was a blogger, for my own channels and for companies. 

I was a photographer, a storyteller, videographer, filmmaker, writer. 

I even got to the edge of becoming a documentary filmmaker. 

These were all in things that in my early and mid-twenties, “I wanted to be when I grow up.” 

I have grown up. 

If I were to keep doing down this line of work as a creative, I would just be doing more and more of it all. And while I enjoy this work, I have been doing it for 10 years and I’m good at it.

I don’t want to keep doing it as my full-time work for another 10 years. I just don’t. I don’t mind continuing to use this creative content-making skillset, but I don’t want it to be my main thing. There is more to me, more in me that wants to blossom. 

It’s a strange thing to realize that I did what I wanted to.

While it might not have turned out the way I quite wanted, I did do it.

I did it.

And that is enough. 

The Road After Being A Content Creator: 

With content creation and the paths I see now, there are a few roads I could take: 

• I could go deeper into the technical side, which is to get better and better at writing, editing, cinematography, design, etc. After 10 years of learning most of the creative crafts required to be a professional youtuber/content creator, I’m good. I don’t want to go deeper. Instinctively, I just feel that I don’t want to be doing this anymore right now. I have spent thousands and thousands of hours over the last 10 years creating on a computer or a smartphone this way and I feel complete, for now. I don’t want to be a better professional editor, photographer, video director, designer, copywriter. I don’t want to get better at the technical side of creating content. I just don’t. I know what it takes to improve in those areas and I don’t feel drawn to it.

• I could go higher, which is to move up in the creative process and creative team-building to become more of a creative director, video/film director or a manager for a creative team. In the last year, as I’ve pondered this option and gotten some experience doing this, I learned that I don’t want to be a manager of a team. I just know that this is not what I want to do in my next chapter. I have some friends who are amazing managers. They care about people, about mentoring people and they are changing lives by being some of the best bosses out there. I’m not wired that way.  While I can certainly appreciate people, I’ve come to seee that I don’t believe that God created me that way. I enjoy creating alone, often, and in these fluid creative spurts that do not lend themselves well team management.  While I always leave the door open for life/God to surprise me, my current instinct says its ok to NOT move up to the point of being a creative director.

• I could go into the bird’s eye view realm, which is to move into the realms where I am helping to build companies that align with my vision and mission. I believe there are places and ways that I can still harness my passion for travel, media and content to create new ways for people to travel and experience the deeper layers of life. This could look like building a company, or being in leadership of an existing company.

The Content Creator Who Turned Out Differently

Its also not that I don’t enjoy creating content, I do. But that road to be a full-time content creator who produces only content that is the extension of my heart and soul never fully opened. I didn’t become a youtuber that makes content only on my personal channel. I got paid to make content for other companies, and each time I did (like this podcast I did for and with Tyndale, or these videos I made with Experience Niagara and Faith Strong Today),  there was always a time limit. I knew I couldn’t do it forever, because it wasn’t wholly me. 

Specifically, I love would to continue to using these crafts to express things in my own heart and soul, but not to produce things purely for another company. Whenever I get to the point where my heart is no longer connected to the final product I am being paid to produce, the end is near. Actually, in the last few cases, a new work opportunity came up before I ever got to the end of a job. So I switched to the end job for a short, fresh burst of inspiration. This is how I ended up creating for the last 3 to 4 years.

The road to do content creation for myself full-time under “Anita Wing Lee” never fully opened. And it’s ok to admit that. It’s not admitting defeat. It’s being honest about how far I got to go as a creator, and being content and grateful for what happened. 

This is a story we often don’t hear about. At least I didn’t.

It’s always seemed like the end goal for a professional instagrammer or youtuber was to get paid to do it.

To get enough followers that you could start selling paid products that would produce an income for you. To have enough followers that you could start working with sponsors who would pay you thousands of dollars to endorse their product. OR to become an “online entrepreneur” so that you could make six figures on each launch of your digital product or course. 

That always seemed like the end goal. That was the only end goal that other creators promoted. It was the end goal that other online entrepreneurs and personalities pushed. 

But that never happened to me.

Still, today, I feel like I get to say that I was a success, in my own eyes, as an online creator.

For the most part, I stayed true to who I am. I never let myself sell out too far, or much. 

I also listened for the cues and signs that Life and God were giving me. I didn’t deny or ignore the wisdom that came to me along the journey. I followed it.

And now, I’m ready for something different. I don’t regret not becoming some big Youtuber, because I believe that I followed what God wanted me to do for the last few years.

So where I have ended up now is where I am supposed to be. 

I built those content creator skills, and more. I don’t feel energized about doing it full-time anymore. 

So where does that leave me? 

If I don’t want to go deeper or higher or wider in digital marketing, then what is next?

The Next Road

This is when the idea of an MBA (Master of Business Administration) popped up. 

I graduated from a reputable undergrad business program, the HBA at Ivey Business School at Western University. It was wonderful, hard, exhilarating, empowering experience for someone who knew herself just as a pastor’s kid. I was introduced to a world that I would never have gotten access to, the world of big business. The School also offers a world-class MBA program.

In the fall of 2023, my mom brought up the idea.

My Ivey alumni magazine goes to my parents house and in that issue there was a page that said HBA’s who return to do an MBA get an automatic $20,000 scholarship.

Visiting my parents one weekend, I saw the ad but didn’t say anything or think much of it.

Then, out of the blue, my mom asks, “What do you think about an MBA”. (Thanks mom!)

I said, “Well, actually… maybe…”

I spend the next few days reading reading every page on Ivey’s website about their MBA program, and noticing how I felt about this idea. I noticed what ideas came to be as I digested the idea of doing an MBA. I knew it was for me. 

I wanted to do an MBA.

I will do this one. 

Having just finished a Master of Divinity at Tyndale University in May 2023 this past spring, it might seem odd to go right into another masters degree, but I learned from that experience I don’t know what’s around the corner. 

I don’t know what exactly is after my MBA, but I just know that this is what I want to do next, after my sabbatical. It’s what I’m meant to do to open up this next chapter. Much like my Mdiv, I’m certain this MBA will open up new doors I can’t yet see, introduce me to people I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and open up my mind to dream and think at whole new levels. 

I’m also sure that God will not waste all of my years being a content creator, and that that experience will still play into my holistic life calling and purpose. 

A Strategic Mind, Fresh Heart, Congruent Soul

The MBA will help me to think clearer about how to run businesses well. It will help me to be a better leader. It will give me more hope that I could really help “change the world” in a way that makes this world more beautiful, whole and healthy. 

I know that God is in this because I would never even be considering this if I hadn’t done an HBA in my undergrad. It’s so funny how we can’t see exactly where God is leading. All through my 20’s, I often thought back to my HBA and was grateful for the things I learned in my early 20’s through that program. I could see that my HBA was helping me throughout my 20’s. I never thought that maybe my entire twenties is just the warm up for my true career and life’s work, which might be beginning in my 30’s. This MBA will do for me again what my HBA did my twenties: it was exhilarating, uplifting, awe-inspring, empowering. It took me up to a mountain top and showed me that I could walk up and over to the other side. And that is what I did in my 20’s.

My HBA shifted who I was and who I believed I could be. I went from being a pastor’s kid who grew up in a small town, to someone who believed that she could be be CEO of a multi-million-dollar company one day.

Because that’s what some HBA graduates become. 

I sense that this MBA is going to do the same thing, but better.

Because this time, I will do the MBA with Christ in me. 

So the evolution of my content creator journey continues and evolves. I certainly still have the heart of a content creator, with a heart that desires to create goodness, kindness, empathy and beauty in the world, but it is about to change form.

I feel that I have completed the era of my life where I felt the need to be a full-time content creator. Though it didn’t look exactly like I wanted, it did happen and I am so grateful for it. I travelled all over the world creating content. I made a lifetime’s worth of friendships. I learned to make videos that I am so proud of. I ventured into being a full-time solo travel creator, an online entrepreneur, an employee, a creative team member, and a creative leader.

My content creation may no longer take shape in the form of videos and photos that I personally create myself, but in the form of ideas, team, structures, systems, spreadsheets, meetings, relationships, networks and processes.

We shall see what happens!

Infinite Love,

Anita