My Success Story

Recently, while perusing through Facebook posts, I came across one that asked you to list 10 different jobs. All but one of them were to be actual jobs you have held. The purpose was to have your friends guess which one was the lie. These were the jobs I listed:

1. Chocolatier

2. Stable hand

3. Saute Chef

4. Women's apparel retail store customer service

5. Waitress (multiple establishments)

6. Event planner

7. Bartender

8. Computer program tech support

9. Cook at a fast food restaurant (multiple establishments)

10. Firearms warehouse office assistant

If the post had not limited the list to 10 items, I could have additionally listed: welcoming host at a restaurant; staff member for an organization providing independent housing for developmentally disabled adults; office manager for an internet web design company in 1998-1999; staff member working in the kitchen and the daycare for a troubled youth ministry; real estate agent; real estate rental manager; and personal assistant. Does it really matter which one is a lie at this point? (The answer is #6 for those of you that are curious.)

That was a lot of different jobs, all with very different experiences. Many were the result of being the only job I could acquire when I was desperate to make a paycheck and had little to no experience to find anything better. My first job was working at a stable with 30 Arabian show horses doing the rounds for feeding, filling water buckets and mucking stalls. The only job I have been fired from was the retail store customer service job- it just was not my gig at 17 years old. Working as a bartender was an accidental part time fill in post for a private club managed by one of my training appraisers. Each and every one of those positions have given me a well rounded experience and taught me valuable lessons that I still use today.

Here is what you need to understand in order to get a true perspective- my highest completed grade level is 8th grade. Yes... you read that correctly. This was not typical for my generation. Maybe it was a couple generations before me, but unusual for the latter half of the twentieth century. The reasons do not need to be explained, but suffice it to say that it was not for a lack of wanting to graduate from high school and proceed forward into a post secondary education.

Without a college degree, I was told that I would be destined to work minimum wage jobs the rest of my life. I feared that might be true. That is, until the year 2001 when a successful real estate broker and appraiser saw something in me I did not know I even had. Within a few short years, I became a Certified Residential Real Estate Appraiser and gained the confidence to trust my judgment and rely on my experience.

My original business began in an unfinished, unheated basement working at my daughter's writing desk and with a growing dream to prove to myself I was capable. Slowly, I was able to grow and I began to succeed. I was introduced to the Mastermind Principle about 5 years into managing my business and it became the cornerstone to an exponential growth in succes on all levels. Being a member of a mastermind helped facilitate increasing my profits, the purchase of my own office building and maintaining a staff of six employees.

My story represents human determination and the ability to overcome circumstances that otherwise, would discourage or prevent most from achieving success. While I understand that our God-given personalities are all different and some are more disposed to looking at the glass as half full, it goes without saying

that even the most positive of people

experience hardship that needs to be

overcome through hard work and perseverance.

The culmination of my life experiences has produced a passion in me to support other self-starters who are an entrepreneur at heart. It doesn't matter if you have the "stuff" that others think you need to get to where you want to be. With a lot of hard work, perseverance and the right support, you can write your own success story.

BL Visionary Coaching is my start in following that passion

and helping others along the road to their own success story.