How Dona Maria Thrives with Many Careers (Singer, Actor, Web Builder, and more)

by | Oct 13, 2020

Meet Dona Maria. She is a multi-careerist who is a prolific artist who produces her own songs to widespread acclaim. She also has the technical skills to build websites and edit videos. That she has both artistic and technological careers demonstrates how multi-careerists often have unique “skill stacks.” These are skills that Dona Maria learned and developed, so that she could follow the careers of her choice. And what a fascinating journey it has been.

Dona Maria’s careers:

  • Singer, songwriter, music creator
  • Actor
  • Digital marketer
  • Director, video editor
  • Web builder
  • CEO and Founder of DM the NO Music

On her motivations for having many careers

“My skills that I have since I was a little girl” enabled her to pursue many paths in her career. As she entered her professional career, she kept pursuing the paths in which she had an interest and abundant skills.

Advice for aspiring multi-careerists

Always follow your “skills, ambition, courage, talents, and willingness.”

Overcoming obstacles

Her setbacks involve dealing with veterans in each respective field. People will doubt you until you prove them wrong.

The mutual benefits of multi-careerism

It takes time and effort to learn how to navigate many careers. “For example, I started my career on stage as an actor in a kids theater and that’s gave me the chance to sing so I knocked 2 birds with one stone. And as a songwriter and music creator, I work on my songs by myself.” Dona can also sing in many languages that opens to the doors to collaborations: English, Spanish, Italian, French and Arabic.

On managing personal/family time

“I’m not a lazy person, nor a selfish one, so trust me there’s always time for everything, as long as you love what you are doing — and you love others around you, especially family, because FAMILY is important…I also have time to pray and to keep a strong relationship with the only one who can help and support anyone who ask for help, and here I’m talking about the “LORD” “GOD.”

Overcoming the stigma of many careers

“I guess the only stigma of having multiple careers is that you get tired…and exhausted of talking about myself. So I do my best to take Saturday and Sunday off to get some rest and be with my family and do activities together.”

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A Day in the Life

  • 7 am – wake up, make coffee
  • 7:30 am – my baby wakes up I take care of him prepare milk etc.
  • 8:30 am – office and studio time depend on what projects I have. Video shooting, songwriting or music creating etc.
  • 11:00 am – prepare lunch and do some exercises.
  • 12:30 pm – lunch time till 1:30pm
  • 1:30pm – work time
  • 4:30 pm – break time playing with my son — take him out for some fresh air and play in the garden for an hour
  • 5:30 pm – back to my office and studio
  • 7:30 pm – dinner time with my family and husband — and there’s at least one hour to swim

Where to find Dona Maria

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Kabir Sehgal is a Multi Grammy & Latin Grammy Award winner, as well as New York Times bestselling author of fifteen books. His latest work is Close the Loop: The Life of an American Dream CEO and His Five Lessons for Success (Hachette, 2020) with his father Raghbir Sehgal which is a Los Angeles Times & San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Follow him on LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitterSpotifyYouTube.

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