I Spent My Gap Year Living in My Car
From a car in the woods to ghostwriting for a bank CEO
I wanted to wait out the pandemic while fulfilling a long-held dream: living as a free spirit in the mountains.
I'd wake up in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, 15 kilometers from the nearest town. My workspace was a Starbucks—where the Wi-Fi was easiest to mooch. I bathed with biodegradable soap in an icy glacial stream. My diet was far from balanced: canned kidney beans and plastic-wrapped sushi.
I loved this life—no ties, no obligations. The risk of my gap year had paid off. At 22, I found my freedom in living, more or less, off what nature provided.
Then, in July, an email landed in my inbox—sender unknown, an agency based in the UK: "Hi Kit, we have a project involving content writing." Vague, but I replied. When I learned who the client was, I had to have the job—and suddenly, signing my first nondisclosure agreement felt downright glamorous.
My assignment: four LinkedIn posts for the CEO of a major international bank. The pay was $1,000 (€865) a month—about half what I'd earned in the ski resort. My clients had no idea they'd hired a 22-year-old with dyslexia, no degree, and a car for a home. But they never asked. I had to Google what a "ghostwriter" even was.
Then I Started Playing CEO
The business world had always fascinated me. I wrote my first business plan in fourth grade, devoured popular economics books in middle and high school, and enrolled in business courses at university. I dreamed of one day leading a major company—but had no clue how to get there or what about the job actually appealed to me.
I assumed it would take decades of climbing the corporate ladder or years of 60-hour weeks to build something from nothing.
Ghostwriting cut that path dramatically short. I immersed myself in the minds of executives, learning how they saw their industries and absorbing years of hard-won experience. Ghostwriting became my shortcut into a world I'd always wanted to belong to.
I Built My Career on a Fluke
When I returned to full-time studies, I planned to earn my business degree—but knew lectures alone wouldn't get me where I wanted to go. I took external writing courses and kept working for clients between seminars and campus parties.
Five years after that lucky break, I graduated, sold my Subaru, and moved to New York—a city the mountain-dwelling Kit could never have imagined calling home.
There, I met other ghostwriters, journalists, and strategists, opening new doors that eventually led me to found my own agency: Seneca. It helps executives, founders, and investors build their personal brands through social media, newsletters, articles, and other channels.
My gap year was supposed to be a carefree pandemic escape. Instead, I found a career that challenges and fulfills me, a city I never thought I'd live in, and—bringing it full circle—the chance to build and lead something of my own. The only thing missing is free vodka shots.
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