Meet Angelica Fraine

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Angelica Fraine. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Angelica below.

Hi Angelica, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I’d like to say it comes from dreaming big–but the answer is actually a lot more simple than that.

It comes from horses.

I’ve been working with horses from a very young age, and to build a successful relationship with a horse takes three things–time, dedication and leaving room for growing pains.

Eventually I started applying that recipe to my life outside of horses–and this is what I’ve found.

Time: Nothing happens overnight. Building your toolbox for success means you have to linger in different spaces and allow yourself time to absorb and grow. It’s easy to try and dash ahead to the finish, but you’ll only end up running in circles if you move too fast.

And you have to have patience–especially with yourself. Understand that you’re not always going to have it all together on the first time.

Just like every horse is different–so is every life experience.

Dedication: When You’re caring for a horse, there are going to be times where you’re up at 3 in the morning or out in the freezing snow at 11pm, but if you love it enough and you care enough, you’re willing to work through the not-so-pretty parts of the experience because the reward is worth the effort.

It’s the same for me when it comes to achieving any of my other goals. I’ve had to overcome some grueling challenges paving the path to my career goals in particular. When I was in college, I was pursuing three different majors and at one point working two internships on top a full load of classes because I knew to make it in in a field that’s as competitive as news, I needed to be diverse in my skill-set, work well under pressure and balance doing different tasks at once.

There were plenty of times where I debated just giving into the pressure and calling it quits, but in pushing through, I was able to build a resilience and mindset that allowed me to grow into the leader that I am today.

And leaving room for growing pains: This is so important. Mistakes are a part of life. You have to make them. Sometimes they’ll be small and easy to move on from–and sometimes you’re really going to drop the ball and it’ll feel like your life is over. But it’s what you do with those moments that can make or break your work ethic. Rather than drowning them out, I started to ask questions instead. “Okay, what was the chain of events that led up to this?” Then I can work backwards to start to understand where I could have done something different.
Soon the question becomes “How am I going to ensure that I’m prepared for the next time around?”

Understanding the importance of these three principles (thanks to the help of some four legged friends) continues to be my recipe for success, and it hasn’t failed me yet.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m a little bit of everything, I’m an equestrian, I’m an artist, I’m a journalist–but I’m a story teller at heart.

I currently work as a broadcast News Producer for mh local TV station.

My joy in life comes from sitting down face to face and understanding the people around me. It

I think stories are part of what make the human experience so unique and I love sharing my own as well as helping other people share theirs.

Stories are a way for us to build community and common ground and I take great pride in that work.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think I touched on them pretty well but to reiterate

Time: Have patience in your process. Just because you’re not moving at the speed of others around you doesn’t mean you’re not moving at all. Give yourself time to linger in different spaces to help you learn and absorb and grow

Dedication: If there’s something you want–go for it. Risks are scary and sometimes the process is brutal, but if you want it enough, it will always pay off in the end.

Understand that you’re going to make mistakes: The only way we can grow is to learn and to learn we have to make mistakes and be willing not just to accept them, but to understand them too so we can keep moving forwards. This one can be easy to forget, but it’s only going to make you stronger.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

Put me in horseback riding and giving me the opportunity to love and own my beautiful boy MacGyver.

Horses have shaped me not only in my career, but as a person.

They helped me build my self confidence, they helped me build a community, and they’ve taught me so many valuable life lessons that have led me to be successful in everything that I do.

Silly as it sounds, horses are the biggest constant in my life and my parents supporting my passion for them has allowed me to grow in ways I might not have otherwise been able to–both as a career woman and a human being.

Image Credits

1st image – Robert Fraine
2nd image – Karolyn Fraine