About Retrospect
Clarity doesn’t always come first. It often arrives later, after the wrong turns, the restarts, and simply not knowing. Then one day you look back and the dots connect.
Retrospect is a publication for ambitious people living nonlinear lives outside the traditional blueprint: entrepreneurship, portfolio careers, detours, and all the other paths that don’t typically fit on a résumé.
Off Hours (free): real stories from my nonlinear life and the lessons I’m drawing from them, told as they happen. It's a mix of projects I'm working on, personal insights, and travel. Every story ends with Worth the Shelf Space, two products I actually use and love and think you should know about.
Working Hours (free until January 2027): practical tips for working at startups, building a modern portfolio career, networking, leveraging AI, dealing with burnout, and more.
Guest Hours (free, monthly): candid conversations with entrepreneurs about their own nonlinear lives: the setbacks they overcame, the dots they connected looking back, and what they’re betting on looking forward. Written to inspire you and help you find your own way.
Who’s am I?
Hi, I’m Aliona! A Slavic girl born in Central Asia who left home alone at 18 in pursuit of a better life. I spent 14 years in New York building a career in CPG brand strategy and integrated marketing, and have been living my long-held dream of a bicoastal life from Los Angeles since 2021. On paper, this reads tidy, but in reality, it wasn’t. I rebuilt my life after a divorce, reinvented myself through career transitions and layoffs, and came out the other side of burnout more than once. Retrospect was born as my way of making sense of my nonlinear journey and connecting the dots, in the hope of helping you connect your own along the way.
How can we connect?
Say hi on LinkedIn, Instagram, or just reply to any issue. If that resonates, you’re in the right place. Subscribe to get Off Hours and Guest Hours free, or go paid for Working Hours.
If that resonates, you’re in the right place.
In retrospect, the dots connect.
Aliona
