For a little over a year, I was the managing editor of the largest English-language newspaper in a very famous resort town in Mexico.

I know what you’re thinking, and I’m flattered. You’re thinking I must be pretty smart.

But my IQ didn’t land me the editorship. Actually, I had no formal training in journalism whatsoever. Not even a little bit. Unless you counted my years of service to the local paper in my hometown in high school, and you shouldn’t—I got paid $15 per column to do write-ups on the high school sports teams every couple of weeks. I also don’t play any sports. Getting wind of a theme here yet?

The bottom line is, for all my lack of training, I certainly didn’t have the slightest idea about how best to muck-rake in a completely foreign country, especially one that’s famous for slaughtering journalists who refuse the government payroll. (If you think the seaside resorts in Mexico are quaint, I recommend you live in one for a while. Better yet, work for the paper.)

I got this amazing job by sticking my neck out and doing what I was good at: writing.

When I found myself, at 23 years of age, transplanted from New York City to a small town on the coast of Mexico, I made a lot of mistakes very fast: I spent too much money, spoke too much English, and didn't eat enough street food. I paid too much for silverware. I even got swindled into taking a 30-peso picture with an iguana the first time I wandered out onto the beach.

Intrepid third world traveler, I was not.

But I did one thing right. I stayed curious. I found every English-language periodical, magazine, and flier I could, and read them all—word-for-incorrectly-conjugated-word. Without pause.

And then I wrote an email to the publisher of the biggest paper, and I asked her if I could write an article for her. I didn't yet know what I would write about. I didn't know anyone in town, or where to eat or what to do, and I certainly wasn't a journalist. It was a crap shoot. But I couldn’t help but think there was a place for me there, maybe as a human interest stringer, and so I reached out. I took that step.

After I wrote my first article, a profile of a local businesswoman running a boutique wedding planning service, I got an email back from the publisher that asked me two questions: just how old was I, anyway?!

And, “Do you have a resume or something?”

A month later, after an awkward breakfast interview conducted at a local restaurant and bar (the meeting locale of choice for the locals, as I would soon discover), I was the paper's new managing editor, installed in an under-construction office on a decidedly non-tourist-friendly side street.

I sat directly in front of the town's most famous American resident (the publisher herself, well-known for causing a stir with her front-page exposes), where I spent some very late, very stressful nights taking furious mental notes on her 15-year memory of life, business, and intrigue in what looked on the surface like paradise. I had no idea what I'd gotten into, but overnight, I became Lindsey Donner, editor. People asked me questions, and called me when they were in trouble. I got stopped in the grocery store and on the street. I was responsible for 50,000+ words a month, not to mention the rather thankless job of defending them every other Monday when the paper hit the stands. When I look back, I still feel dazed.

The point of this story isn’t to show off. After all, I live in San Diego now, and I run my own business—it wasn’t like I magically walked into the career of a lifetime. I eventually parted ways.

This story is to show you that the only thing stopping you from being your own boss, or the editor of the newspaper, or the CTO of the next revolutionary tech startup is this: your misplaced presumptuousness about yourself. The truth is, when I went for that job interview, I felt like I’d accidentally walked in on someone else’s life. “This isn’t me,” I kept thinking, as I drove (and got lost) on the way to the newspaper’s HQ. “I’m hardly even a real writer, let alone an editor. She’ll hate me the second she sees me. I’m too young.”

As the publisher told me later, she did kind of hate me when she first saw me—I was too young, too American, not tough enough. I had a limp handshake and I looked nervous. But she liked that I had the chutzpah to step up to the plate and swing. She liked that I kept coming back, day after day. She liked that I tried really, really hard. She loved it when I surprised her. And most of all, I think she really liked that, in spite of how hard she tried to groom me to be like her, I was resolutely myself—and a pretty good editor, to boot.

If I had never taken that chance and told my own crabby head-demons to SHUT UP FOR 10 SECONDS PLEASE, I would not be the woman I am today. I would not have the same confidence. I would definitely not have the same curiosity, one of the best qualities I learned to cultivate at that job.

I’m a better, richer, braver person.

And the funny thing is, all I had to do was ask.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/distortedsmile/24609695