“Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive.  Because the world needs more people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman

So this is part 2 of my journey.  And where a lot of the exciting stuff is happening.

Photo credit: Jackie Perdomo Photography

I never considered myself an entrepreneur.   I’m usually introverted, and until the past few years I’ve been pretty risk-averse and safe. Through owning a company with Jake, I really began to love entrepreneurship.  Owning your own business, whether full-time, as a side gig or just a hobby-type, is just plain exciting.

There are two ways to do it.  You can own a job, or your can create a lifestyle through your business.  

For many years, Jake and I owned a job.  It was a successful job, and we took owning our company very seriously, read a lot of books and put a lot of processes in place modeling our favorite companies (Southwest Airlines, Zappos, Starbucks, Disney…)   I don’t want this to sound like we didn’t have fun and enjoy what we were doing, because we did.  Owning a business afforded us a lot of luxuries, and for that we are grateful.

After a fun night of ice-skating with friends.

But by now, we have really established that it’s all pretty meaningless if we don’t have the time or resources to do the things that make our souls come alive.  We want to create uncommon lives with time and freedom and experiences for our family.

5 things significantly impacted my break-through:

1.  I attended a business and personal growth and development seminar in October that was incredible and life-changing.  It gave me the a sort of unabashed confidence to just start moving in the right direction.   If retreats like this are your “thing” you can find out more here.

2.  I started listening to John Lee Dumas’ “Entrepreneur on Fire” podcasts almost every morning.  This provided incredible doses of inspiration, business ideas and motivation.  Thanks Kyle Henderson if you are reading this. 🙂

One thing he says over and over on the podcast is to find that one thing you couldn’t NOT do. That thing you could wake up in the middle of the night and do for free.  That just might be your calling.

He also says to get rid of your “someday.”  Your someday will never happen unless it becomes your today.  Otherwise, 50 years from now it will still be your “someday.”  If you want to get from point A to point B faster, start making decisions faster.  Start changing direction faster.  As a result, your failures will happen quicker and more frequently, but so will your successes.

(Side note: you should seriously listen to this podcast!  If you don’t know where to start, listen to episode #814 first.)

3.  Jake and I started having some serious talks about our current lives as entrepreneurs and the lifestyles we really desire for us and our families.  We decided to make a tough decision and give up the most profitable part of our business, in exchange for a laser focus on a more consistent and enjoyable part.

4.  We stopped brainstorming and dreaming and set some cold, hard dates.  That’s not to say anything is wrong with dreaming and lofty goals, but if we all waited until it was 100% safe to step into the unknown and make some changes, we would never do it!

5.  Finally, I looked at people who were doing and living lives I admired, and sought their expertise.  I enrolled in a blogging course through abeautifulmess.com and I started reaching out to handmade creative shop owners I loved.  I’m a HUGE Tony Robbins fan (laugh if you want) and he says the simplest way to success is to seek out the experts that are where you want to be, and just model them.  So instead of trying to re-create the wheel and come up with something completely new, just follow someone you admire.

Click here to check it out.

As of January 31, I will officially be leaving Jake’s Carpet Cleaning, and moving on to this space of creating an online lifestyle business with my kiddos and family.

And here is my “someday” that is going to be my “today”…

• I want to be traveling to exotic places multiple times a year with my family.
• I want to be creative, as my job.  
• I don’t want there to be a clear distinction between what I do for a living, and what I love to do.
• I want to help and influence other business owners and moms by sharing my experience.  I want to mentor, guide and teach wherever and whoever I can.
• I want to stay home and experience my kids’ childhood and adventure with them.

So, I decided to launch this blog, in partnership with growing Free Babes Handmade.   By making the blog about all the things I care about, I figured I would have to start being intentional about my life.

I’m excited to hear from you too.  So I have 1 question:

If you could do anything in the world with the promise you would not fail, what would it be?

Let me know!  Say it out loud in the comment section below.  Let’s be brave together in 2015.  Thanks for following along, and I can’t wait to jump feet-first into content!  I’m most excited about a weekly series interviewing a handmade shop entrepreneur.  This feature is going to be every Sunday, and the first guest is Amanda, the creator and owner of @hudsonandruthie on instagram. You won’t want to miss it!  You can sign up for post notifications at the bottom of this page, or subscribe to the blog through Blog Lovin’.

(What is Jake going to do, you might ask?  Jake wants to combine his love for adventure and love for talking with people (and being on camera and public speaking lol) to create a blog hub rating mountain bike, snowboarding and three-wheeling trails in the front range and eventually around the world.  He also wants to create a podcast where he interviews fellow adventurous guys and can provide some inspiration for all those adventure-seeking Dads out there.)  yay for adventurous, thrill-seeking dads and the heart attacks they give us.

My babe and his crazy adventures.