Welcome to Trillion's Cafe 🧉 by Aliena Cai!
Welcome to Trillion's Cafe by me, Aliena Cai!
On July 1st, 2023, I quit my $100K Senior Product Design job at eBay. This is a decision that young Aliena would not understand because I worked and waited my entire life for a well-paid job in a Fortune 500 company. I talked about why I left here.
Since then, I’ve been working for my own company, Aliena Design LLC. I share what I’ve learned through social media and my course. Much of what I share comes from my experience working as a product designer for big tech companies.
But this newsletter is different, which is why I’m so excited 🫣
1️⃣ What’s Trillion’s Cafe about?
I’m most excited to write about what I’ve learned and experienced as Aliena Cai.
Topics include tackling real-life challenges like making ethical decisions in business, overcoming imposter syndrome, the fear of having and not having success and money, and life as a designer running a one-person business.
2️⃣ Why is it called “Trillion’s Cafe”?
One secret about me is that 80% of the time I feel like a piece of trash.
Why am I not productive? Why does my design look so ugly? Why am I on social media again? Why can’t I exercise? Why can’t I go to networking events?…
That’s why I often say, “I’m trash.”
Until one day, my boyfriend said the same thing after scrolling through Instagram for an hour in our bedroom, “I’m trash.”
And I immediately said, “No, you are not!”
“You are a Trillion!”
As an ESL person, that’s the first “T” word that sounds nice that came out of my mouth. We both loved it.
So, I adopted a habit that every time I want to say “I’m trash,” I say “I’m a trillion” instead.
It’s just a fun thing to remind me to be proud of myself and dream bigger, stop feeling guilty, and start taking action and taking care of myself.
Now you are officially a trillion too 👑
Until my next email,
Aliena Cai 👩🏻💻
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