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shophotlavablog · 4 years

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Inspo: Lizzy Alvarado

Lizzy went from an internship at Steakworld to a career woman at depop. One of my favorite Lizzy stories is that she used the tips from a post I made on tumblr about” how to land an internship” ON me and got the job. Now She is the the marketing manager at Depop and constantly making waves. She is always inspo for Hot Lava design and aesthetic so I wanted to highlight this hustler to inspire everyone to seize the moment and make it happen for yourself.

Q: What have you been working on lately?

With my job everything has turned digital, which has been a crash course on how to do an event in digital format. So, I’ve been doing a lot of [Instagram] lives with different artists and trying to bring the energy that I used to do with my work IRL to digital, so it’s kind of been a challenge, but it’s been fun.

At home, kind of just nesting it up. I feel like every few weeks I realize how long we’re going to be in quarantine—so I, like, redo my house a different way, so I think it’s kind of nice because since quarantine started I’ve really settled into my house. I have a lot of house plants and cats, so I’m kind of like trying to keep everything alive.

Q: What are some things you’ve been doing to prioritize “me time”?

I think by making myself a challenge. Right now, me and my best friend are doing this workout challenge, where we FaceTime each other and do the workout at the same time. It’s been my mental and physical entertainment, and gives me something I have to be held accountable for, like trying to workout and having a goal.

Recently, I took a week off. Even though were working from home I don’t think it’s the same as when you’re working; you always have to take a little break and reset and a lot of my coworkers and myself have not given ourselves that, because we’re working at home, when are we going to take that time and just sit? But recently I took a whole week off and I didn’t answer one Zoom meeting or do anything. For me, that reset my whole mindset and gave me time to just think about the reality of the position we’re all in, and my reality, like what I need to do instead of living in limbo of half doing things because I’m waiting for us to be out of quarantine his life for now just telling yourself that you need to adjust at least until like January or something for now and just set my dates back, pushing things back as things happen.

I feel like I’ve been working later and more sporadically when I’m working from home because you can just check your messages or your computer whenever, and you can get up and see the dishes are piling up and spent two hours cleaning your kitchen, and then you have to make up for it, and then you’re working until nine or something, so it’s definitely a balance figuring it all out.

Q: Can you give us a small walk through on how you started out in your career, and what younger you would need to hear to get where you are?

I started off by doing a PR internship in NY that was focused on beauty products. It was there that I learned a few hard truths like the "top 10 best products for glowing skin" mentioned in vogue was actually just a list of products that various PR agencies were able to pay off editors to add. It just didn't sit right to me and I didnt end up staying at the agency after my internship, but it did spark something in me about promoting products that I did like and that aligned with my values: sustainability, female owned brands, etc.

One great thing about my time in NY is that's where I happened to meet my boyfriend on one fateful night out at Max Fish which is usually the opposite of the place you meet your soulmate lol. Anyways fast forward a few months and I ended up moving to LA for said boyfriend and had to completely start over. I had no connections in LA, no friends, and at that point was still too early in my career for my resume to stick out of a pile. The start was rough and I had to get PT jobs to make money while I figured out what the fuck I was going to do in this new place where people usually move to with very specfic big dreams.

Now to the good part, the part where HOT LAVA started it all for me. Rachael loves this story and I didn't actually admit it to her until several months after working for her. Basically I had been reading her advice column Steaktalk for a long time and she had a post about how to get a job. Literally she broke down how to set up your resume, cover letter, and mentioned ways to set yourself apart from the rest. Well I used it to apply for an internship with her and it worked! Once I had that experience in LA under my belt I was able to transition into a brand manager for The Cobra Shop which was right next door to the HL office and eventually I started working for Depop as a Marketing Manager which is where I am today.

Q: Tell me your most embarrassing moment in your current career/ relationship/ creative endeavor:

That’s a tough one. I feel like when you’re first starting out, everything feels embarrassing. I remember the first time I came to Hot Lava—I didn’t do anything I can think was embarrassing, but like, being embarrassed of my existence of just not knowing how to interact with people. Because when you just see everything online, when you finally meet people in person, sometimes it can be really overwhelming. It’s kind of funny to just be embarrassed for being yourself sometimes, but I feel like you grow out of it.

Q: Do you think about where you’d like to be in 5 years or even 1 year, or are you more of the “in the moment type”?

I am more of a person who is in the moment. I do think of where I want to be in five years but I don’t hang onto that title too much, because I think if I think, “In five years I want to be a CEO,” and right now I’m just a marketing manager, in my head I’m like, “What am I doing? I’m just out here everyday not doing that.”

I feel like I live in the moment as far as knowing that, if you are in the moment, it’s going to pay off in the future. If I do work on whatever I’m supposed to be doing at the time, or whenever I’m given the opportunity to do that, then yeah, it will pay off in the end.

I don’t think my career really started to move until I was able to accept being in the moment. For me, when I think about my jobs and how I got to being hostess in New York, to being a dog walker and now to becoming a marketing manager, I don’t think I was able to do that until I was able to say that I just need to live in the moment and get that job to make money right now.

I knew I thought I could do something great but I wasn’t able to do anything great until I was able to sit myself down and handle the basics like, get a job—not “the” job, but a job, and just do OK at that, get your money right, and get to the right place. And slowly I was able to start looking for internships and then I was able to get one. Then it just grew from there.

I feel like if I was living with my head in the clouds, thinking about the future, I wouldn’t have been able to do that because I wouldn’t have accepted just getting a basic job for now.

Q: What causes you stress and how do you ease those stresses?

Prioritizing my work/home life tasks stress me out, especially working from home RN if you have a deadline but also a pile of dishes to do it's hard to ignore that when you aren't able to leave the house and ignore the home life stuff. I try to read self help books, make lists, ect. The biggest help is self talk and just reminding myself that the world won't just because your todo list isn't complete.

Q: Name one hobby:

I really like going out and riding my bike, so finding places are safe right now has kind of been the thing. I don’t go mountain biking or anything, I like riding my bike in a nice/safe area. I also don’t want to be in the city, so I’ve been looking for national parks nearby and local areas where you can do a 14 mile bike ride or something. I used to live in New York and I would ride my bike everyday, so I used to ride 25 miles a day, but now it’s like 12 miles I’ll make a whole day out of it.

I also really like music, but it’s sort of like a personal thing. I write songs and work on stuff, but I’ve never thought of it as something I’d do in reality. But, I’ve been doing that a lot more since we’ve been in quarantine.

Q: One thing you always tell your best friend:

I mean I tell her everything. I literally have become attached to Facetime with her daily since quarantine started. It's kind of a nice thing because she lives all the way in Texas so being stuck inside has brought us closer. I used to call her every couple of days and give her the highlight reel of my week but now it's like every 3 hours and life is so boring stuck inside that no detail is spared.

Q: If you wrote a book what would the title be and why?

Scared for No Reason: Why Doubting Yourself is Your Downfall.

I feel like there are already many books about this subject but I haven't found one I really connected to specifically. One of my biggest realizations in life is how much fear has stopped me from doing things I am actually really passionate about or interested in. I am still on the road to ultimate confidence (giving myself a deadline of reaching age 30 for this), but a lot of things changed in my life when I pushed past the fear and doubt that is a big part of my inner voice. A few examples are applying for internships that have led to my career (thanks Hot Lava), talking to my boyfriend who I have now been with for 5 years, walking up to a brand's creative director and telling them I can produce content for them and making that my side gig. The point is none of this would have happened if I was listening to that fear voice in my head saying I'm not good enough, pretty enough, or qualified enough.

Q: What's your favorite Hot Lava piece and why?

My fav Hot Lava piece recently would have to be the bike shorts or zebra dress just from a design perspective. I think the team really hit the nail on the head and created trending pieces in a unique Hot Lava style. My all time fav piece and first piece I ever bought is the surf top! I purchased the first one HL ever produced the night it launched in 2014 or 15? Its white and has an eye! But I love the cut the most. I have it in black and lime green too. It's just the perfect top, a contrast of modesty with the high neck but also sexy with the tightness.

What's on Lizzy's Playlist:

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