Ceryn Chen, Vice President of Advertising at Influence Tree

Ceryn Chen is a digital marketer, media buyer and vice president of advertising at Influence Tree. She is deep into spirituality and higher vibrations. Ceryn lives in Austin, Texas and has worked in the digital marketing space at agencies doing SEO, media buying, funnels and digital campaigns for the past decade.

Hi my name is Ceryn Chen. Back in 2017, I encountered a situation that completely shifted who I was and experienced a spiritual awakening where I just woke up to the truth of life. This happened when I went to the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. I drove from Los Angeles to Vegas and on the way there, I got into an accident in my Audi, then when I arrived, my phone and credit card got stolen. I went to the concert with my friend Michelle and I don’t know what happened. She was shot and killed but I survived… The sheer nature of what happened and how there were so many signs that tried to stop me from going led me on a crazy journey where I went out searching for answers. Why was I saved and why did she have to go? What was the universe telling me?

A Dark Night of the Soul — Leading to a Spiritual Awakening

I fell deep into a dark night of the soul where I spent two months in therapy, just crying my eyes out because I was such a huge mess. I then felt a spiritual awakening of sorts that took me to a point in life where I felt awakened from living in the matrix and awakening to the true sense of what the world is about, from energy vibrations to digging for my own truth and evolving into the person I am today.

I began to find a lot more clarity, trusting myself and the universe. I adopted an attitude of gratitude and began meditating regularly and I had an instant transformation of sorts. I began to realize that everything is tied to vibrations and that I was at such a low vibration that I attracted negativity. Yet, when the vibrations within me began to get higher, I started to attract many positive things in my life. I dropped my ego, found inner peace and began hanging around good people. I began eating high vibrational foods and began figuring out how to channel source energy and the life force around me.

Things didn’t always start out that way though. When looking back from childhood, my parents were extremely strict and were always trying to live out other people’s expectations. I feel they had the wrong principles and were going after the wrong things, from chasing money and achieving things that would make them look better instead of looking internally to find that level of inner fulfillment and happiness.

Trying to Break Out of My Introverted, Quiet and Closed Off Shell

I definitely wasn’t the popular kid in school. It was more of the opposite, where I was a super nerdy with no sense of fashion who had maybe five close friends in school. My parents had absolutely no idea how to dress me up or what clothes to buy for me. There were many moments where I would just wear my brother’s clothes. My parents were always scared that I was going to get distracted from studying, so I didn’t go out much and spent most of my time hanging out at school, hanging out for about 30 minutes after class was all wrapped up, but rushing to get home before my dad came back from work.

My parents pushed me to get into a good college because they felt I would be guaranteed a good job afterwards, but that didn’t work out as planned. My first year at the University of California, San Diego, it was as if I was on a different planet. I had a hard time socializing and talking to other people and was very introverted, quiet and closed off. Even though I had this whole musician thing going on, others didn’t have any interest in music at the time and I just felt out of place.

I began to learn a lot about myself and started to find who I am after the first year in college. find myself after the first year. My best friend at the time lived in Los Angeles, so we would take the bus or train every other week to see each other. We would go to Pacific Beach, shop in the downtown district or check out the city. I’d also meet friends in the dorms, start going to frat parties and all the other normal things a college student does.

Graduating College Early and Taking My Stab at Law

Because I studied so much in high school, I had a ton of credits going into college, so I was able to graduate from UCSD in two and a half years. I felt I had a head start on all my friends and had a spark of ambition and thought I could find a job much earlier than them. I don’t know if it was the pressure from my parents or the community I was raised in, but it was really hard for me to find a good job after I graduated from college. I put landing a good job on such a high pedestal that it just pushed it further and further out of my reach.

I moved to the Westwood Village in Los Angeles and lived in a locked down shoddy apartment with two other girls, then began looking for work. I had a low paying job helping this one guy doing SEO web design, where I first learned digital marketing, but this was way before Facebook was even around. I thought I could go to law school to further my education and studied for my LSAT, but I interned at a law firm for a month and got fired, then realized that I couldn’t become a lawyer and just stress out about cases all day. On top of that, I had so much social anxiety and didn’t even know how to talk to people. I was even scared of my phone whenever it would ring.

Facing Social Anxiety Head on and Discovering the Hollywood High Life

While living in Los Angeles, I began breaking out of my shell. My first roommate, Anastasia, was a beautiful blonde girl who went to UCLA. She let me borrow her fancy clothes and that’s when I started getting into fashion. But prior to that, I was a tomboy my entire life; I never thought I was pretty, didn’t know what defined pretty and had such a low perception of who I was. We started going out to Hollywood and I got to experience that whole high lifestyle with my friends. It was one of the best years of my life because it was filled with so much transformation, freedom and fun. I went from being a complete and total nerd to someone who was fun and enjoyed life and being around others.

Breaking Out of a Toxic Relationship and Standing on My Own Feet

Luckily around this time, I started trying to do my own startups and I eventually met people like my business partner Leonard Kim and a lot of other talented individuals in the startup and eCommerce industry. I got my start in digital advertising when I met Danilo Lee who took me under his wing and gave me a job at his digital agency firm, long before he passed away.

Since I started to surround myself with ambitious people who were full of energy, something began to switch inside of me. All of a sudden, I felt like I had a voice. I broke out of my shell and instead of being the scared little mouse that I always was, I was actually talking business with my peers and they were paying attention to what I was saying.

Mastering the Art of Digital Marketing and Media Buying

I also cut my losses and walked away from my ex and finally dumped him and escaped. I got my own apartment in the Arts District and worked at a digital marketing agency since inception for six years, mastering my craft at digital marketing, specifically in funnel building, media buying and conversions. I did everything from start to finish, from figuring out how to market something, write copy, set up campaigns, target the right audience, optimizing and making money for the companies we worked with. I worked personally with clients in fashion, supplements, food, housewares, beauty, apps and so much more. We grew from eight people to over 200 employees. One client I was personally handling, we were earning him $1.5 million a month just selling basic metal signs.

Even though my prior travels were based on weird missions that came out of my own expenses, they were still fun because I was able to meet so many amazing people and see so much of what the world has to offer. I continued to travel afterwards to Israel, London, back to Europe, to Colombia and Bali.

Reach Out and Connect With Ceryn Chen

Nowadays outside of building successful campaigns for the clients at Influence Tree, I spend a lot of time traveling, picking up the guitar and playing music, working on self improvement and looking to continually improve as a person. I’ve been on a deep self-learning journey and sharing a lot of my passions with others.

If you’d like to learn more about me, dive deep into spirituality or talk more about how we can help you grow your business at Influence Tree, drop me an email at [email protected].