I laughed out loud this week as I shared with a friend about my life in 2004...
I had just been laid off from my j-o-b and, embracing the opportunity to live my dream of being an entrepreneur, I "launched" my coaching company (a.
k.
a.
: sent an anticlimactic email newsletter to friends and family).
I had slightly more than ZERO dollars in the bank and, weekly, I walked to a nearby deli, where for $6, they sold MASSIVE sandwiches (an entire loaf of bread stuffed with the deli selections of your choosing).
I'd order one, often paying with loose change, take it home, and cut it into 6 pieces: lunch, dinner, lunch, dinner, lunch, dinner...
for the next three days! Day 3 was always a bummer because by then it was super soggy.
I ate it anyway because it's what I had.
I didn't have a Plan B.
I didn't have money...
and I ALSO didn't have anyone to bail me out if I failed.
But what I DID have was: Fierce determination.
A wobbly but committed belief in my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants self.
A willingness to do whatever it took to Be who I was Becoming...
to fulfill the vision I saw of my own potential.
Do you see yourself in this? Here's another 2004 story that makes me laugh (now, not then)...
Three nights a week, I got in my old beater car, said a prayer and turned the key.
When it started, I said another one: "Thank God!" With still-warm business cards in the pocket of my Dress Barn suit, I would find my way to that evening's local business networking event.
I was totally intimidated and frightfully aware that I really had no business being there (in more ways than one) - but I went anyway.
I intentionally parked my please-don't-let-anyone-see-what-I'm-driving car at least 6 blocks away - a pride precaution.
I went determined to grow my mailing list.
I was all too aware that the "newsletter" I wrote each week was only being read (more like ignored) by friends and family.
So, at these networking events I always asked anyone who gave me their business card if I could have their permission to add them to my newsletter list.
For whatever reason, almost everyone agreed.
Little successes are important and I remember celebrating in my ("please start") car after each event as I counted how many business cards I had collected.
I couldn't wait to go home and add them to my growing-bit-by-bit mailing list.
This, a few pro bono clients, and an absolute unwillingness to quit, is how Create Your Life! began.
Of course a lot has happened between now and then...
but flashing forward to now, these eight or so years later I no longer eat soggy sandwiches.
I drive a car that I love (my sassy Mini Cooper Clubman) and Create Your Life! serves clients around the world through a community that grows every day.
SO MUCH TRANSFORMATION has happened in my life and in my business since then that I barely recognize "circa 2004 Tara"! And this is good news for YOU because...
I'm on a mission to share everything I've learned about transformation - what works, what doesn't, and how to get on your very own fast-track to who YOU are becoming.
Through my self-study, my graduate-level studies, and my trial-and-error lessons learned, I have created the comprehensive Dream Acceleration™ Program & Process to support YOU in accelerating your own busting out of that confining old shell, stepping up and out in a bigger, bolder way, and significantly speeding up your dream realization successes by connecting to and BEING your Future You...
the self-actualized Self that YOU are in the process of becoming.
May your dreams always inspire more than they intimidate, Tara