Hello Reader,

I was on my walk today and it occurred to me that I've pursued a business idea every decade since I graduated college:

• In my 20s: Children's party service
• In my 30s: Freelance journalism, Tupperware (embarrassingly, yes I did this), nutritional MLM
• In my 40s: A brick-and-mortar cafe and online course programs
• As I'm entering my 50s: Women's career coaching

So why didn't I stick with the earlier businesses?

On a practical level, they never made the same amount of money I made in my job.

It was always a lot easier for me to excel in my corporate roles, even saying 'no' to promotions multiple times in my career.

I don't believe in doing something you don't enjoy simply for more money and bigger titles because you'll inevitably end up not performing and ruin your reputation and personal brand in the process.

The more important reason why I 'gave up' on these earlier businesses was because I found out they weren't what I wanted.

• Children's party services: Not into entertainment and kids.
• Freelance journalism, Tupperware, MLM: Realized making money alone wasn't enough if I didn't believe in the product.
• Cafe: Turns out loving coffee and enjoying it as a customer is completely different than running it as a business.

No amount of research prepares you for actually doing the thing.

Coaching on the other hand, is something I've been unconsciously doing over my past 20-year career in HR.

2 years ago, I started taking more conscious steps to get the qualifications and certifications to build a business around this.

As you can see, building my business has been a long journey.

I can take the negative view and tell myself I'm a failure or that it's too late for me.

Or I can tell a different story:

That during those 30 years, I kept my dream alive even as I was raising 2 awesome kids and growing a career that enabled us to travel, invest, provide for our kids and parents, and live a pretty good life.

Now that the kids are older, I have more time to ramp up my business again.

Building a business and transforming your dream into reality takes time and stamina.

Sometimes, you have to deal with other more important priorities in your life and put your dreams on hold.

I believe this doesn't set you back. Instead, these experiences shape you into the person you need to be in order to have the life you want.

I never believed I was capable to create the results I wanted before. I was introverted, timid and had low self-esteem.

But life threw many tough curveballs my way these past 30 years that enabled me to gather evidence that I was capable of making things work despite everything that happened.

If you're feeling like it's too late for you, or like you've failed, take this as the message you needed to hear today:

This experience is preparing you to become the person you need to be to create the result you want.

Take the next most logical and obvious step in front of you right now and keep going. You will figure it out and you can make it work.

Have a great Sunday and week ahead!

Sharon

P.S. Helping women navigate challenges in their career is what I specialize in. Reply to this email and let me know your #1 challenge right now that you need help with and let's create a plan to overcome it and create the outcome you want.