Grateful for the Hard Times
Get ready to face rejection.
Over and over again.
Rejection will be your constant companion in the beginning stages of your business. People are going to tell you “no” and it’s going to be discouraging.
Especially if you aspire to become a voice of authority in the realm of content creation.
Kaylin Zittergruen is one of those individuals who braved the world of rejection in creating and establishing her businesses: Kate Keeps Wild and Roam With Less.
Zittergruen applied for jobs for six months after walking away from teaching. Her full-time job was applying for jobs.
She went six months without even a “thanks-for-your-application-but-we-are-pursuing-other-candidates” email. (Seriously, how hard is it for a company to send a mass email telling people they can stop hoping they’ll hear back soon?)
A huge career change and an unconventional lifestyle shift added pressure and stress as Zittergruen tried to figure out how to build a lucrative business. But these changes were actually exactly what she needed.
These changes became the things that made her tick. The things that set her apart in the outdoor industry.
Rejection is real. It's heavy. And it can easily crush your spirits. But Zittergruen wanted to create a better life for herself.
And she did.
“I didn’t wanna be that teacher living in a van in the school parking lot.”
Initially, Kaylin Zittergruen resisted her husband Tom’s desire to “do van life”, which she says was something he’d always wanted.
She was a teacher.
She says she didn’t want to become “that teacher” who lived out of a van down by the river.
With a master's degree in educational leadership and goals of becoming a principal in the future, Zittergruen started to realize she was getting burnt out. In the midst of her 6th year of teaching middle school English, Zittergruen found herself fighting for the attention of her students in a virtual classroom.
In 2020, the pandemic required Zittergruen to begin teaching remotely. But nothing, no matter how engaging or interactive, could ever replace those in-person teacher-student experiences.
Whether Zittergruen knew it or not, the stars were aligning.
Pretty almost perfectly.
Zittergruen did know, however, that she didn’t want to continue teaching online. She felt that there must be more to life than simply checking off boxes and continuing in a career that no longer fulfilled her.
Zittergruen remembers asking herself, “What if I tried writing for myself instead of teaching others how to do it?”
Behind the scenes, Zittergruen’s husband (who was an elopement photographer at the time) landed a job as the marketing director at Vanworks after he impressed the company with his photos of the camper van he purchased from them.
A remote job that could support a van lifestyle.
No longer needing any convincing and no longer a teacher, Zittergruen and her husband began traveling full-time in their newly converted sprinter van.
“The ultimate team collaboration”
Zittergruen describes how her struggles to land a remote writing job in the van pushed her to think outside the box. Dedicating her spare time to gaining a deeper understanding of social media, Zittergruen learned how to create quality content and how to land brand deals.
Since she and her husband were traveling full-time in the van, she quickly gained ground in the outdoor niche with her unique van life content and Kate Keeps Wild was born.
“I think it’s important,” Zittergruen explains, “to have something that sets you apart from other people when you’re pitching to these big brands.”
But, despite her growth on social media, Zittergruen still hadn’t found consistent work.
“There were a lot of tears and uncertainty,” Zittergruen remembers.
It was during this time of uncertainty that Zittergruen and her husband created Roam With Less, a website showcasing their combined creative talents. This website and blog helped Zittergruen finally secure some consistent writing gigs.
These days, Zittergruen writes for a few different van life blogs, is a successful social media content creator, and has a featured story in Rova Magazine’s April issue.
Zittergruen refers to living and working in the van with her husband to be the “ultimate team collaboration”.
“Some parts came really naturally and some parts took some getting used to”
Living full-time in a converted camper van involves a lot of sacrifice.
Zittergruen explains that van life made her realize she took many ordinary things for granted.
“Chore days,” Zittergruen laughs, “are never fun.”
Scrounging around for spare quarters and locating a nearby laundromat, using the least amount of water possible to wash the dishes (to conserve the water in the tank), and ditching showers more often than not, have become the norm for Zittergruen.
Zittergruen says van life involves constant planning. You need to know where you’re going to get water next, how you’re going to restock your food supply, and when the van will be desperate for gas.
But, the biggest reality check Zittergruen experienced was working 40 hours a week in a van.
Forcing herself to work on her computer in the van while surrounded by some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world… is not easy.
Zittergruen has learned to think positively about these challenges though. All these inconveniences allow her to do things most others only dream of.
Like waking up on a beach.
Or sleeping in an epic mountain campground.
Or working (very) remotely in a National Park.
By pushing through months of uncertainty and rejection, Zittergruen built a better life for herself. One full of adventure and unconventional challenges.
“It’s hard to say you’re grateful for the hard and stressful moments, but I am.”
It’s also incredibly hard to see the “big picture” when you're in the middle of it. Zittergruen didn’t realize it then, but her struggles and hardships were laying the foundation for the amazing life she has today.
Photo creds: Tom Zittergruen (@nomadxtom)