The 4 questions I ask at every step in my career

**Bio: Katherine Barna is a Communications and Brand executive based in New York, currently Head of PR for autonomous driving technology company, Waymo. She’s held roles in communications strategy for a number of startups ranging from Hello Alfred, a leading Proptech company, to Awesomeness, a Gen-Z multi-platform media company which was acquired by Viacom in 2018. She spent several years as Head of Communications and Public Policy for Tumblr both before and after its acquisition by Yahoo. She joined the company in 2011 as the 25th employee overall and oversaw all aspects of the company’s communications efforts as well as initiated the company’s first major social impact campaign centering around mental health awareness. Previous roles include communications for Hearst, Newsweek Magazine, and XM Radio and as a publicist for classical musicians. She is a graduate of Fordham University at Lincoln Center where she studied Theatre Performance and Anthropology.**

Seventeen years ago, I was in the heart of New York City in the home stretch of a very well earned – and very expensive – degree. Though you might not have known that if you saw me rolling on the floor, rolling around and making animal noises while a man shouted in a heavy Russian accent, “Now…Tiger!” in the direction of myself and a dozen other palazzo pant-ed (you know the ones) college seniors. I was closing in on the end of four years of Theatre performance training that had prepared me for…poorly embodying wild animals and having too much access to too many feelings, mostly.

Don’t worry, I got a backup degree in Anthropology “just in case.”

Doing theater school exercises (Katherine's the one in the white socks)

If the Katherine of today could have dropped down next to that Urban Outfitter-attired, younger version of myself and told her in the future I’d be overseeing PR at one of the most exciting and transformative tech companies out there, or that I’d already been through five acquisitions and built my own team multiple times, spoken at conferences around the world, or that I’d had an audience with Presidents (the good ones) or sat in a meeting at Downing Street, I don’t think she’d believe me. Hell, I don’t think we’d get past the part where I’m head of a Public Relations team considering “What is PR?” was an actual Google search I conducted around that time. 

The truth is, I didn’t know what I was capable of then. There’s a part of me that still doesn’t. But instead of that filling me with dread, or the awful imposter syndrome and self-doubt, there’s a certain freedom I’ve found in embracing the openness of possibility.

When I first began my career it was a true trial by fire. I had realized right around the time of graduation that pounding the pavement looking for acting gigs wasn’t “it” for me, but I had no idea where or how to apply what I had learned. When a trusted professor asked me what I was about to do with the $60k a year education my parents had just paid for and my best guess was that I’d “bartend for a little bit,” he instead suggested PR. I applied for a junior publicist role at a boutique firm that represented classical musicians and opera singers. They were looking for someone who could write well, work plenty of nights and weekends, cared passionately about the arts and wouldn’t blink at a barely liveable salary.

I got the job. 

I knew nothing about the industry I had landed in, or about what the day to day of my job really was (thank god for patient coworkers), and it certainly wasn’t anything that I had put on my vision board or what any of my classmates would have expected from me. And with every step and misstep (did you know that opera singers need their towncars to have a very precise internal temperature or did you also learn the hard way?), I gained more and more clarity not only on what I was doing, but what I wanted. I actually very quickly learned that I loved PR, was innately suited for it and loved being the conduit to bring a story to life. Working at an agency with a roster of clients? Not so much. So I set off to keep trying, to keep refining the things I was uncovering in my burgeoning career that brought me satisfaction.  

Whenever I would start thinking about what came next, the question was and still is: “What can this teach me that I don’t already know? What tool does this give me that I don’t currently have?” And of course, “Is it interesting? Do I want to spend my time thinking about this- with these people- on my best days and on my worst ones?”

When I joined Tumblr as an early employee in 2011 I remember being struck with what felt like a radical realization that the people who worked there- my new colleagues- were all friends with each other. The answer to that final question of mine – do I want to spend time with these people? – Was emphatically yes.  The friendships were very easy when we were planning a SXSW activation, a Cannes debut, or a photoshoot with The New York Times. But the true test was when we were navigating an acquisition, a re-org, or a staff reduction. During even the most trying times, my team held each other up and we kept each other looking forward. 

The questions and searching never really stop, of course. Having a nontraditional background and a non-linear path, I’ve definitely had my share of self-doubt. My resume on face value– from acting to classical music, media to social media, entertainment and a brief foray in proptech and now autonomous driving tech– is not exactly typical, but it rounded out my perspective in the most incredible way. Now my nontraditional background is something I consider my greatest asset. And the questions I ask myself day to day are: “What can my outsider perspective offer? How do I hold onto those eyes?” The journey to get here has hardly been straight, but it’s given me a hell of a view along the way. 

It’s the time of year when we all start making goals. And lists. And refreshed manifestos. And I’m here to say YES, do all those things. Let’s write out our plans, memorize them, speak them into existence into the wind outside our windows, and then let’s rip them into tiny pieces and be just as comfortable letting the breeze take them where they go. 

This is a metaphor, please don’t litter. 

In 2023, my intention is to live in a mindset of possibility. Of who really knows but let’s take this step and then another one and let’s find out. If this resonates with where you’re at today, I hope you’ll join me.