Kick-starting your Passions
Laura Coelho
Public Relations Manager Intern
Microsoft Canada
My personal brand consists of three core values: curiosity, authenticity, and drive. These values stem from the resilience and grit my parents taught me growing up as a family that immigrated to Toronto, Canada from Belo Horizonte, Brazil 20 years ago. While my curiosity and drive come from my dad, my creativity and agility come from my mom. They’ve taught me to be authentic to who I am, which makes being passionate about the work that I do a priority for me.
Over the holiday season in 2019, I painted my first pair of sneakers with a custom dragon design as a gift. What started as a sentimental and inexpensive alternative to purchasing designer shoes evolved into a way to challenge myself creatively. I started getting custom shoe requests and quickly realized that I could turn this creative project into a business. In November 2020, I launched my small business, Kicks by Coelho, where I hand-paint personalized custom designs onto sneakers. My customs allow clients to showcase their authentic selves through a unique design that was specifically curated for them. For me, I can marry my passion for design and fashion and learn about what it means to build a brand and its story. It’s been important to me to build a community that supports my work organically. As such, it’s been a fun challenge for me to build a page without any paid initiatives and to focus on creating a premium wearable piece of art that my clients have a personal connection to.
The pandemic has presented challenges to some aspects of my life, but also enabled and presented opportunities that weren’t a possibility prior to. If my university courses hadn’t transitioned to online, I wouldn’t have had the time to begin a project like this. When interviewing most of the questions I was asked was around understanding my passions, why I started Kicks by Coelho and why it was important to me. That spoke to the values that are present within the company culture, and I’m proud to be seen and valued as a creative individual by my team.
While hustle culture presents itself as a norm for students aspiring for their dream job, the pandemic has forced me to pause and try to set boundaries for myself, to focus on what’s important in the present moment, and really think about my mental health. Painting kicks is a way that I can challenge myself creatively while taking time for myself. It’s also opened my eyes to what it means to support a small business. Lastly, it’s led me to my internship as a Public Relations Manager at Microsoft, where I can flex my creativity into storytelling for a variety of portfolios. I’m excited to continue to grow in a company that places so much value on creativity and empowering their people to achieve more.
My advice to students who feel the pressure of hustle culture is to stay authentic to who you are and what you’re passionate about in everything that you do. Exploring your passions while enriching your skillset is far more valuable than doing work because you think that’s what you’re suppose to do.
"You are responsible for prioritizing your passion and the career path you want to take, so why not take charge of it now?"
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