Tammy David on the gift of being a Xennial and accumulating chapters

It's clear that you cannot fit Tammy David into a neat little mold. From writing for a broadsheet to taking photographs for publications, from spending hours doing research to conducting interviews with athletes at courtside, there is no defining her by a single title. Her 40s is her decade of learning and unlearning, and an important piece of advice she holds on to is, "Learn to get comfortable with discomfort. I wish I learned this earlier. It’s a skill. Maybe even a superpower." She Talks Asia chats with the New York based creative whose answers are refreshingly real and incredibly inspiring.

What do you do for a living, and what are the things that make you feel more alive?

I’m a photographer and content director living in New York. Some of my clients include Silverlens Gallery in Chelsea and ICONIC Magazines, a popular magazine chain in New York.

If you really have to put me in a box, I’ve spent my entire career in communications. I started as a writer in high school for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, became a photographer with bylines in The Wall Street Journal and shows in galleries, pivoted to multimedia journalism, and somehow found my way into public relations, content strategy, research, and even working as a fixer and producer for foreign journalists.

What makes me feel alive now is navigating my 40s in New York. There’s something about being here that makes me feel like a fresh grad again: learning, adapting, figuring things out, and discovering how much I still don’t know. At 43, I find it exhausting yet fulfilling.

I grew up in Manila as the youngest child, and there are practical things I’m only learning to do properly now while also trying to keep up with an ever-changing world and media landscape. I was far from sheltered. I think I was just very good at avoiding things that felt difficult or uncomfortable!

How old are you?

43 years old. 1983.

Fill in the blanks: “I am most known for ___________.”

My photography, which I’ve been doing for quite some time.

I’ve been lucky enough to take photographs for a living and hit many of the milestones I dreamed about when I was younger: bylines, exhibitions, assignments, commissions, and opportunities to work alongside people I really admired. Photography gave me pure joy and made my world much bigger.

But I think people also remember me for being extremely online. I’ve been chronically online since we got cable internet in 2000. I was promoting my photography before we even called it “personal branding.” I had a LinkedIn page as a freelance photographer in 2008 and Instagram in 2010. Who does that? A Filipino photographer who promoted herself!

I loved being part of online photography communities. I shared industry news and even other photographers’ work as much as my own and genuinely enjoyed the conversations. Somewhere along the way, I realized I had developed another skill: I understood how people behaved online and how to make them stop, look, read, or engage. That eventually led me to content strategy and marketing.

Most recently, though, I’m probably best known for my photos of cakes that went viral online. They became limited-edition prints that helped raise money for a handful of charities during the pandemic. Who knew! My drama queen cakes!

Later, I collaborated with The Olive Tree on a collection of pillows and tote bags with my cakes.

I’ve done what I personally classify as “important work” for the likes of UNICEF and USAID but somehow it’s the cakes that are top of mind hahaha. It’s great.

Fill in the blanks: “I am most proud of ___________.”

My nonlinear career. But if I had to choose one chapter, I’m especially proud of my years working in sports marketing at Evident.

I was around 35 when I entered that world, and at the time I felt stuck. I had this irrational fear that my time was running out. Then I was given the opportunity to work with a basketball team in the Philippine Basketball Association. I knew very little about sports marketing, but I took it even though it pushed me completely outside my comfort zone.

I hated schoolwork growing up, but suddenly I became a student again. I took online courses, read white papers, and watched videos just to understand the language and movements of modern basketball. I asked everyone questions, from seasoned sports agents to utility staff. I wanted to understand everything, from sports psychology to fandom.

It paid off. We had happy clients, won awards, and eventually expanded our work into esports. Gaming and esports became a lifeline for me during the pandemic and opened up another world I never expected to work in.

That experience changed how I thought about age and expertise. Starting from zero in your 30s, 40s, or beyond doesn’t mean you’re actually starting from zero. You bring everything you’ve learned along the way with you. What do you think is the biggest challenge, and the best thing, about being your age?

The biggest challenge is definitely the physical changes, especially as a photographer. Photography can be very physical, and I sometimes wonder if it’s too late to undo some of the unhealthy choices I made when I was younger. So now I’m dealing with lower back pain, muscle tears, and the impending doom of perimenopause. Lord help me. So not to sound like your mother or doctor, HEALTH IS WEALTH!

Another challenge is unlearning! There are ways of working and thinking that I once accepted as normal that I now recognize were problematic. Getting older means having confidence in your experience while still having the humility to admit that some of what you learned needs to be discarded.

The best thing about my age is being a Xennial the micro generation between GenX and Millennials. What a sweet spot. I grew up analog and became an adult alongside the internet. I remember the world before social media, but I was also online early enough to watch it completely change how we work, communicate, and see the world.

I sometimes feel like a translator between generations, and I don’t take that for granted. How have you grown wiser in the past few years?

With what I know now, you couldn’t pay me to be 21 again, even if I had better skin and considerably more stamina so yes yes a thousand times yes!

I think wisdom for me has been less about finally having all the answers and more about becoming comfortable admitting when I don’t. I’m better at asking questions. I’m more willing to change my mind. And I’m finally understanding that starting over doesn’t mean you failed at whatever came before it.

I also know now that there’s a difference between quitting because something is no longer right for you and quitting because something is difficult. I’m still learning how to tell the difference at 43!

What has been the most defining decade of your life, and what are you looking forward to in the decades to come?

As someone with a nonlinear career, I don’t think I have a defining decade… yet.

I started very young. I was 16 when I got my first byline in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. That was 1999, pre-EDSA Dos. Can you imagine? Having that kind of platform at such a young age was INSANE. I often joke that maybe I peaked too early, but that experience opened so many doors and led me to many different versions of myself.

I’m not going to pretend I’m excited about getting older. I dread parts of it! But my idea of success has definitely changed. Success is temporary. Recognition is nice, but it comes and goes. These days, consistency and stability mean more to me. A win can be making myself a good meal or seeing a social post I worked on actually help a magazine or a business.

So maybe I don’t need a defining decade after all. I’d rather keep accumulating chapters.

What are the best pieces of life advice you have ever received?

Learn to get comfortable with discomfort. I wish I learned this earlier. It’s a skill. Maybe even a superpower. 

I’ve turned down opportunities because they felt too difficult or risky. Dealing with big companies that can be slow, top-heavy, demanding, or even slow to pay. Being deployed somewhere unfamiliar. Learning new software to improve your work. Having difficult conversations with managers or colleagues. Sometimes these are frustrations you have to navigate, not necessarily a hot serving of shit.

Of course, there’s a difference between being challenged and being treated badly. Looking back, sometimes nothing terrible was happening. I was just uncomfortable, or it was my anxiety talking. I’m still learning to tell the difference. But definitely there is no medal for being a reklamadora.

Who are the women you admire most and how have they helped shape your life?

I was lucky to grow up surrounded by strong women: my sisters, my mother, my aunt, and most especially my grandmother, Luisita “Lucy” David.

If I had to name one woman who inspired me, it would be her. She married young, had four children, and later separated. In the 1950s, she moved to New York to study at NYU. I can only imagine the courage that took for a young Filipino-Chinese woman at the time. She eventually returned to the Philippines and took over our family’s advertising agency, becoming one of the first Filipino-Chinese women executives in the industry.

Throughout my life, I would randomly meet people who had worked for her. They always had stories. They remembered that she smoked a lot and could be firm, but what they always told me was that she was a good person and treated her employees well. I love that this is what people remembered decades later, along with her Chinese lumpia dinners.

She died at only 64, which feels incredibly young to me now. I often think about how proud she would have been of her grandchildren and the very different lives we ended up building.

Growing up around women like her meant I never really questioned whether a woman was allowed to do something. I saw women working, making decisions, raising families, running businesses, solving problems, and starting over. That was normal to me.

And now I live and work in New York, the same city my grandmother came to as a student more than 70 years ago. Our lives are very different. She was a trailblazer, and here I am at 43 learning how to make pork sinigang for myself. But I like knowing that she was here before me.   Photos courtesy of Tammy and Happy David