Meet Trailblazer Jessica Terregino

Jessica, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in the suburbs of Houston and attended college at The University of Texas in Austin. I had no idea what I wanted to do after college or what career path I wanted to take so I thought business was a good catchall. I have always been a very studious person and amidst some diversions in high school, I consistently managed to keep good grades. So, I was accepted to the Red McCombs School of Business where I studied Marketing and minored in Retail Merchandising. I was interested in fashion and from an early age valued my clothes and what I wore. I remember shopping at Mervyn’s (if you’re under the age of 20, google it) with my mom and sister and picking out my own clothes. Mind you, my style was horrific, and somewhere hidden under 2 million other photos is epic evidence of this. But I had some sort of style and viewpoint and that has proven true to this day.

As a Sophomore, I had a paid summer internship at Macy’s through their Store Management program. I still remember what I bought with my first payment – a grey snakeskin Vera Wang handbag from Kohls. This was in 2009. And guess what, snakeskin is back in 2019. Beyond getting paid, which was great, it was a valuable experience because, at that point, I decided I wanted to be the person making the decision on what to buy rather than executing those decisions at the store level. So, I accepted a full-time offer with a large department store based in Houston. I would then spend the next six years climbing the corporate ladder to eventually become a Buyer in the Home department. I reflect on the experience often because similar to being very impressionable in your early teen’s, I felt very impressionable in my mid-twenties. There was a lot of angst and distraction, and I never really felt grounded. I learned how to be a merchant and did it well, but more importantly, I learned about vulnerability, perfectionism, saying no, self-awareness, and approaching the end of year six, courage. Only a few months away from my 7-year anniversary with the company, I made the decision to resign and step into a completely new industry and job. I am now approaching 1 year since I made that decision and although I have had to make certain sacrifices along the way, it has opened up a whole new world of creative opportunity and personal growth.

I think some of the best ideas are reared in the face of uncertainty and getting uncomfortable is the only route to achieving your highest self. I am nowhere close to where I want to be, but the vision is there, the future me is in sight, and now it’s just a matter of staying focused and ‘doing’.

During this process, I decided to launch jesswhatithought, a personal blog devoted to fashion, travel, lifestyle, and Houston. It sounds like it encompasses everything, and you’re right. It does. It’s a reflection of my style, what inspires me, and really #jesswhatithought. My intention is to go a few layers deeper and through curated images and witty content (I’d like to think so anyway), provide real information that is helpful, inspiring, and intelligent. We all know how much content is being created. My hope is that jesswhatithought is more than just another blog of styled outfits and provides real value to my readers.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, it hasn’t been an entirely smooth road, but I think ‘smooth’ is a relative term. Everyone goes through some sort of struggle be it personal, financial, or professional, and on different planes. At the end of the day, I am grateful for my health, a supportive, loving family, the ability to afford a certain lifestyle, and friends who care about me. My struggle has been internal, being at odds with myself, not feeling confident, living in fear of what others would think, being unhappy but not having the nerve to do anything about it, suppressing my ideas because I thought I had to live up to a certain image. Self-awareness goes a really long way and unfortunately, I think it’s something our society often distracts us from. I’ve tried to stay very conscious of myself and my mindset, which has also had a huge impact on my goals and personal growth.

If I were giving advice to someone I would tell him or her a couple things, (1) learn to pivot. Don’t get stuck where you are just because you haven’t experienced anything else. (2) Stop using comparison to measure success. We’re all on our own journey on our own time. (3) Failure is the best thing for you and the fear of failure doesn’t exist. (4) Understand that your weaknesses are equally as important as your strengths. Get really comfortable with being uncomfortable and realize that everything in life is a practice. And (5), don’t take yourself so seriously.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I have always been a glass half full, hard-working, can-do, self-starter, poised person. I’ve learned to be analytical and data-driven, as well as sales and people focused. Throughout my entire career, I have always felt an entrepreneurial spirit shining through and to some degree, jesswhatithought has provided me the outlet to exploit that. The blog is completely homegrown and currently a staff of 1, me! All the lifestyle photos are ones I’ve taken and fashion shots are taken from friends and family (who I am very grateful for!). I style all my own outfits, write all my own content, built the entire website and edit photos myself.

I do hope to monetize it at some point but organically and with the right partners. One of the additional goals of jesswhatithought is to highlight the city of Houston, be it nightlife, food, art, entrepreneurs, local business, and everything else Houston has to offer. There is an exponential opportunity for the blog and I am super excited to share it! I have other ideas on the burner and I am hopeful jesswhatithought will give me the platform and confidence to pursue them.

So much of the media coverage is focused on the challenges facing women today, but what about the opportunities? Do you feel there are any opportunities that women are particularly well positioned for?
Absolutely! Women are positioned to conquer the world if they really want to. I think now more than ever women are recognizing and becoming comfortable with the idea of having the power to choose. There is so much pressure to have a career, and also raise a family, and make dinner 5 nights a week, and keep the house clean, and run errands, and do all the things necessary to keep the wheels in motion. I think now there are more open conversations being had in the workplace, and at home, about choosing your priorities and what is important. We don’t have to do it all and be “superwomen” if you will, because we are already superwomen! We are already amazing, compassionate, kind humans and now we get to choose how we spend our time and where our priorities lie. Again, I think women can literally do whatever they want, but specially I think women are positioned for leadership roles in large corporate companies. Workplace dynamics are changing and I think our generation is restless when it comes to company culture, work/life balance, corporate hierarchy, etc. I think generally speaking, women are exposed to more than men (again, when it comes to being the glue that holds life together and keeps the wheels turning). So having women in leadership roles can provide a more balanced, holistic perspective at the highest level and have huge impacts on the way companies function.