A WArm Welcome To The Online Travelers

Hey! My name is Jenn Grush and this site serves as a reminder for me to not live life on the sidelines, from the outside looking in, but to live every day from the outside looking Jenn - living up to my full potential and not letting opportunities pass by as I wonder what it's like to experience them for myself.

The professional in me knows that to be a successful blogger, you really need to have a common theme. Maybe everything you write about is food, or fashion, or music. However, the creative soul in me wants this site to be unabashedly me.

On The Outside Looking Jenn is a peak behind the surface on everything Jenn. That means sections for the big influences in my life - Work, Family, Friends, Creativity, Travel & Music. Click around to see what made the cut.

Odds are this site will change shape and format as I build it, so I hope you join me on this blogging adventure where I'll aim to bring my writing skills out of the crapper they've fallen into since graduation.

Whoa. I've always wanted to refer to myself as "the author."

Now that that's out of the way let me introduce myself. 

As you know by now, my name is Jenn. Yes, that's short for Jennifer. Why the two n's? I'm not entirely sure. After going by every nickname for Jennifer: Jen, Jenny, Jeni etc., one of my friends suggested Jenn and it just sort of stuck. When you know, you know - you know?

Anyway, I grew up as the oldest of four kids in a small town in Northeastern Indiana which translates to me telling people that I'm from Fort Wayne.

Like many young Hoosiers, I dreamed of going beyond Indiana - and not just for vacation. After graduating high school, I did! I moved a whole state over - goal accomplished - to attend Miami University in Ohio.

The spring of 2015 rolled around and yours truly graduated with a Marketing degree, all wide-eyed and ready to take on the world, only to return back home to Indiana. Why? because finding an entry level job with little experience, aside from classroom experience, is rough. Basically every company is looking for unicorn employees to fill their "entry level marketing jobs." What makes their ideal candidate a unicorn you ask? The requirements:  must have 8 - 10 years of experience in the following 3 specialized fields. Mhm ok, tell me how that can possibly be characterized as "entry."

I'll admit that was a slight exaggeration, but you get the point.  Everyone always says it's who you know, not what you know and holy cow, they weren't kidding. 

Fast forward to today and I've had the opportunity to work as a senior digital marketing analyst, at a digital advertising agency in Fort Wayne, IN where I also headed up the party planning and I got to help out with training new analysts! Aside from my exciting marketing career, I've re-embraced my passion for event planning and live entertainment by picking up a side gig. And it's an awesome one; I get to travel to new cities and help run VIP events for both large and small scale concerts - setting up VIP spaces, greeting guests with merch bags, all that jazz. Check out my Music & Entertainment blog to learn more about how that's going!

I've also rejoined the world of team sports, because no matter how much I hated volleyball practice in high school, I missed the game and being a part of a team. Joining a new league full of complete strangers is easily one of the scariest and best decisions I've ever made. Thanks to Sport and Social I have a new group of amazing friends, I can say I've been skiing, and I consider myself to be a pretty average wallyball player. 

Basically, I'm back in the swing of living up to my full potential and I'm no longer letting opportunities pass by as I wonder what it's like to experience them for myself.  Let me share with you the wise words once found on a random Pinterest pin - Attack life, It's going to kill you anyways. I made that quote my Twitter cover photo at least 8 years ago l and I haven't changed it since because sometimes we all need a reminder to be adventurous. 

I'd like to cordially invite you to join me in Attacking Life.

Cheers,

Jenn