Women We Love: Molly Fulton

Molly Fulton will help you stuff your face, or the faces of your coworkers, through her job as director of sales and marketing for Vmeals—an online platform for ordering group meals, catering for business events or meetings and client presentations. Molly, who lives in Lake Monticello with her husband Chris, daughters Kyle, 15, Frances, 10, and a son, Scott, 6. “Throw in the dog and cat and you have the recipe for perpetual chaos,” Molly jokes.

Molly says her greatest strengths include quick learning, adaptability and being comfortable with change. Perhaps that’s why she has thrived in the particular career path she’s taken. “Honestly, my career choices have been predicated upon one of two things: ‘I need a job—what have you got?’ Or ‘That sounds like fun—I think I’ll try that’,” she says. “I have never let ignorance or inexperience (of which there has been plenty) get in the way of going after my next engagement.”

Knowing the type of person Molly is it’s easy to believe her biggest pet peeve is whining. “It makes my ears bleed when my children do it,” she says. “In adults it says ‘I’m a helpless victim of circumstance.’ I’m not giving away my power and responsibility for my choices. What a waste of air.”

A typical day for Molly involves reading and writing, as well as analyzing sales data and checking on web traffic. “I like winning,” she says. “I like when sales are up, traffic is up and the blog is getting a lot of page views. The best thing for me is delivering a lesson or a challenge while making people laugh.”

Vmeals, similar to other businesses in the country, is feeling the effect of the economic slowdown, she says. “Would you be surprised to hear that the economy is particularly challenging right now? Vmeals is a really nice service, but when budgets are slashed, food is an easy target. I know it’s cliché, but like everyone else, we are challenged with doing more with less. It can be exhausting.”

Molly takes care of herself physically. She’s a runner, but not a “zealot.” “As I get older I’m more in tune with what my body needs and I try to honor that,” she says. “I just try to make reasonably good choices and treat myself well.”

But is she finding balance?

“Balance is overrated,” she says. “I believe in living a passionate life. I believe we live life through seasons and there will be times when some area will dominate—be it career, kids, health, romance, etc. You have to be present in your season and not get too hung up on balance.

“As for everything else, I am completely dependent on an intimate relationship with God to make sense of the world and my place in it.”

Her inspiration for how she lives her life? Her parents and grandparents—though not based on anything they said. “I just watched the way my parents and grandparents lived. They did a lot of things right,” she notes.

So, does she offer advice for other women considering pursing similar career paths? “I don’t think I’d give anyone else career advice outside of this: try real hard to know what you want. It’s harder than you think.”

8 Things You Might Not Know About Molly Fulton

1. Who is your favorite author and why? I don’t know if I can really pick a favorite, but Diana Gabaldon is awesome. Her “Outlander” series is super smart, sexy, entertaining and a great escape if you like historical fiction—and have a soft spot for Scotland—which I do.

2. Favorite thing about Charlottesville? Too many choices, but I’ll have to go with the landscape of Central Virginia. We live in a place of elegant, stately beauty. I’m awed by every day.

3. What is your favorite hobby/pastime? Reading and sleeping (not necessarily in that order).

4. What is one of your hidden talents/skills? Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be hidden, would it?

5. What is your guilty pleasure? Well, it’s got to be food related. Eating store-bought chocolate frosting right out of the can.

6. What is your favorite movie and why? Again, too hard to choose. I’m a big movie fan, but I’ll go with one from my formative years: “The Way We Were.” I love that the intense, interesting, unconventional girl—not the pretty girl—gets the gorgeous guy. I love the “otherness” they both experience, the romance, ideology versus comfort, and the realization that what you thought you always wanted you didn’t or that it just seemed like too much work so you settle. Passion is a hard path.

7. Where did you grow up? Oh, I got around…I was a Navy brat that settled in Maryland by middle school.

8. What is the greatest invention of your lifetime and why? I don’t know if it’s been invented yet.