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Earning a living by following your passion doesn't happen by chance

Written by: Debra Gould

Article Overview: Intrepid entrepreneur and home staging expert The Staging Diva, talks about the role timing plays in the journey toward making a living by following your passion.

Earning a living by following your passion doesn't happen by chance

Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” I believe there's a great deal of truth to that quote.

During one of my many moves, I found a five-year old newspaper clipping about the home staging industry that I had saved in a "business ideas" file. The irony was that I had no memory of seeing the article much less saving it a full two years before starting my own home staging business. Here I thought I had pulled the idea of being a home stager out of the air after I resold my fifth house within 8 weeks of buying and redecorating it. Yet, there was living proof in my ideas file, that somehow I had already planted the seed and my subconscious mind had been thinking about it for five years!

There are so many points in life where we're at a cross-road that we don't even realize. For every choice we make, we are by default choosing not to go with another option. So if we're unhappy with our careers and we don't feel we are following our passions, every day we don't do anything to change our situation is actually a day that we've chosen to keep things how they are.

Sometimes it takes an outside jolt or chance conversation to help prepare our minds to see the other opportunities that await us.

When I first saved that newspaper article on home staging, I was living comfortably and feeling absolutely secure in my career. But I always felt like there was something more that I was meant to do. That's why I was always saving stories in my business ideas file and was hungry for any story about how others had reinvented their lives. When I read the home staging article, I thought about how house staging would allow me to use my natural decorating talent and the interest I'd always had in real estate. But at the time, I pushed the thought to the back of my mind, in part because I had no interior design training, and kept going with my marketing consulting business. I did have an MBA after all, what could I have been thinking? The thought of leaving that cocoon of security and credibility was terrifying – especially as a single mother.

While anyone on the outside looking in would have said that I was operating a successful business as a six-figure earner working from a home office, success is a relative term. Can you consider yourself successful if you don’t feel passionate about what you do?

I believe I was meant to get into the field of home staging, but when I first learned of the industry, my mind wasn’t ready to go there yet. I had to reach the point where I had no choice but to follow my dream of fully using my creativity to make a real difference in people’s lives. When I started my home staging business, Six Elements Inc., I realized there is nothing like spending your days doing something you love and are naturally gifted in, and being paid well for it too. Teaching others how to grow their own home staging businesses actually evolved from there, because of the many aspiring home stagers who came to me for help in reinventing their own lives.

A few months ago I received an email from a woman who was working in the human resources field. She didn’t feel passionate about it because so much of what she did all day had nothing to do with helping people and she was tired of dealing with office politics. During a random encounter with a colleague, she admitted her restlessness and desire to try something new. For whatever reason, this colleague saw something in her that she hadn't yet seen in herself and asked if she’d ever thought of getting into home staging.

It was a seemingly random suggestion given that this colleague knew her as a human resources person. Yet, suddenly she found her passion. She was full of excitement and a newfound positive energy, realizing that being a home stager would still allow her to help others, which is why she'd chosen a career in human resources in the first place.

So much that happens to us can be attributed to a source we can’t see or really explain. What I know for sure is that timing can play a crucial role in your life. When it comes to following your heart, listen to that inner voice and pay attention— prepare your mind!

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Article Tags: back of my mind, business ideas, chance conversation, chance favors the prepared mind, cocoon, consulting business, cred, cross road, home stager, home staging business, interior design, irony, jolt, living proof, louis pasteur, marketing consulting, newspaper article, newspaper clipping, passions, subconscious mind



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Re: Most desirable type of business to start - This may seem intuitive, but the best type of business to start is one with which you have experience and a passion for. The industry is irrelevant. For example, I wouldn't start a grocery store simply because I have no experience in that industry and no desire to do so. So, no matter if grocery stores are the most profitable enterprise ever, I wouldn't succeed. On the other hand, I can make a decent living and have fun running an Information Technology consulting business because that's what I know. Hope that answers your question.
Re: We all have some special talents! - Have you tried card counting in a casino? I bet you'd do wonderfully well. Go research it and make some money with your skill! On a more serious note, I believe we all have special talents as well. I also believe we all have that one 'passion' that drives us to succeed. It's about harnessing that passion in conjunction with our skills that make us successful.
Who is to blame when things don't work out? - As I already wrote on numerous occasions, working on line is a full time job. Working on line is a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because anyone can start one without any investment, diploma's or special skills. Due to the economy many people are struggling to pay the bills because they lost their job or the earnings no longer sufficient to pay all the bills. So they are looking for a way out. Many see a website with pictures of villa's, Ferrari's and bags of money with the promise that they can have that too. Even if they are skeptic about the romanticized pictures of villa's and Ferrari's, it is in people's nature to believe what they want to believe especially when the are in a desperate situation and many decide to go for it. Thinking "Well, I probably can't have the Ferrari and villa real soon but I will be able to pay my bills next month". Fact is you can earn a decent pay check with working online if you look upon it as a real company in the real world. Most new company's in the the real world need a few years before they earned back their investment and are in profit. The difference is that people that want to start a "brick" company need diploma's, a business capital and a license to start one in most countries. And that is the booby trap of working online. If you start an online business without any preparation and a business plan it is very unlikely you will ever earn a descent living from it. And you need to have a desire and passion to make thinks happen. Many people blame circumstances or programs or what ever that they are not successful. But generally speaking, in fact YOU are to blame if you are not successful. Sure there are a lot of false gurus promoting opportunities that will only fulfill the the dreams of the program owner and perhaps some members in the top. Because the math isn't right or it is a scam. I resent people earning a living over other people's back and feel sorry for people that fall for it. But than again, people are not forced to join it. It is YOUR own decision to join something or not, and therefor YOUR responsibility. Learning the art of internet business and social marketing is a full time job. To carve your own path to your destiny and fulfillment of your dreams is a long term thing and requires commitment and time. A lot. Having a passion keeps you motivated to overcome obstacles. Will give you the courage to tackle new challenges. It will give you the strength and drive to carry on when you have set backs. And set back will come as I know from experience. When you want to be successful with online business you have to love being online. It is a simple as that, you can't earn if you are not in your shop interacting with possible customers (and potential suppliers, read good connections). And what is success? In my opinion success can not only be measured in bags of money. I'd rather say that the bags of money are the crown on your success. In my opinion success should be measured in little goals and achievements like make somebody enthusiastic to join your program, to master a new skill or to earn a bit of money to cover some essential expenses of your business. A major ingredient of success is being patient and determent. Do not give up. If you hop from program A to program B all the efforts and time you spent on program A are wasted. Like knitting a sweater and quiting it to start knitting a new sweater because you can't master the pattern. Master the pattern of sweater A and you will have a nice sweater as an end result, as in a figure of speech. Or end up with a pile of unfinished sweaters of no use to you that also have drained your recourses (lol the wool) in the process of knitting. I am very fortunate. My biggest dreams already came through. My kids and husband and myself are happy and healthy. My dream is to open a music cafe in Turkey since music is one of my passions. My second passion is social marketing and helping others to learn social marketing. So I will be financing one passion with the earnings of an other one. Can't imagine a better drive than that!
Advisory Board - Sure - I will start a new thread. I think it is a relevant and timely topic. Mine has been around for over 2 years now. And doesnt consist of any family (thank God).


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