Ten years ago, I followed my dream. It started on a dock in Muskoka - with the kind of things you say when you're sipping wine, feeling invincible and talking big!
"You work too hard" she says.
"I know and I can't seem to catch up" I say.
"You could sell cookies" she says.
"I love baking and my friends are always wanting to give them as gifts" I say.
"You should start a business" she says.
"Hmm, a gift business with boxes of cookies!" I say "But I'd need to sell my house and move to Toronto".
"Okay - no problem" she says.
Year after year after year......
Until ten years ago, a sign on a lawn - "Apt for Rent". A chance drive by on a route I'd never taken. Thirty minutes later I was signing a lease for that apartment with no plan on how to start a business. I believe it was "my sign" - to go forward, to live without regret. The words were as plain as day:
For Rent
Take this chance now
This is the time
Without a plan, I sold my house, quit my job and moved to Toronto, changing the old adage "Ready Aim Fire" to "Ready Fire Aim". I had a career in community nursing which was fulfilling, low paying and challenging. I worked for The Canadian Red Cross by day and taught classes in the evening. My clients were seniors and I loved hearing their life stories and seeing them in their own environment. I volunteered as a Board member with Hospice Wellington and I baked cookies in my spare time.
If I had known how hard it would be, how long it would take, how much there was to learn, would I have even tried? Not knowing was a blessing. Not taking a chance would have been worse than not succeeding. I am grateful for my ignorance then and what I have learned since. Most of my choices have led to success. Others have been hard learned lessons. But I am where I should be.
If I knew then what I know now...