It's Your Choice

Laura was a great CPA. Probably still would be if that is how she had chosen to continue her life. 

Dating my stepson, Laura was an up and coming star at a large regional CPA firm and she was nearing the end of the grueling 80-hour work weeks that make or break young CPAs but which expose them to a wide range of businesses. College was paid off. The future was gravy. 

However, Laura was a victim -- a victim of a culture that says 18-year olds should know what they are going to do for the rest of their lives when they pick a college major. By the time Laura was a senior, she pretty much knew she didn’t want to be a CPA. But her parents had all that money invested in her (not a small consideration when one’s parents have sacrificed) and, well, she was about to get her degree. The time for choosing something else was over. 

Laura put in her time at the firm, working weekends and holidays when necessary…until gradually she came to a startling conclusion: she wanted to touch lives. Literally. 

She wanted to become a massage therapist -- specializing in pregnant women -- and a labor doula. So she saved her money, quit her job and did just that, enrolling in Seattle's Ashmead College, then continuing her pregnancy focus with Doula training from Seattle Midwifery School. 

Today, Laura’s dream has gotten even bigger. She’s now pursuing a degree as a Nurse Practitioner Midwife, still focused on pregnancy. Touching lives. She’s touched mine.

The Beginning of the Beginning

Working at Hewlett Packard included ‘offsites’ – gatherings that occurred somewhere other than the workplace where groups often combined some work with play.  At this particular 2-day offsite, our group participated in a questionnaire that evaluated key strengths and profiled each of us into one of 16 different categories such as “developer,” “implementer” and so on.

On day 2, I was the first to show up. The facilitator asked if he could use my ‘profile’ as an example when results were passed out. He said, “This is a profile we hardly ever see in a corporate setting…that of an entrepreneur.”  I shared with him that I was completely dissatisfied and bored in my current job – even though it paid well. He said “this shows it,” adding, “you have the potential to be a millionaire, to be successful at whatever you do. You have what it takes to run your own business.”

A couple of months later, I tell my manager “I’m giving HP two more years and then I want to do something on my own.” I just have no idea what it will be.

Two years go by, then two more…and two more. Too many…unless you subscribe to the idea that all things happen when they’re supposed to. 

Still at HP, neither my girlfriends L. and C. or I have been to a psychic before. We’re hesitantly open to adventure. We draw straws. I go first. The psychic introduces herself and talks about how she works. We shuffle cards, I cut, she lays them out. The very first thing she says to me is “Have you ever thought of running your own business? You’d be very good at it -- not that it wouldn’t be a lot of hard work -- but you’d be very good at it. You should think about this.” I stare, gobsmacked. “Who have you been talking to,” I think. “How on earth do you know this?”