A friend of mine, Tamara is one of those truly rare individuals who has sorted out how to create a life and make a living out of things that make her happy. In fact, when something stops being fun and stops making her happy, she stops doing it and moves on to something else. She is a mom of two boys and married to a local utility man in the mountains.
Years ago, when we first met, she had an idea for bark covered planters that took off with the local hotels and vacation renters. Just two years into her business, she decided it wasn’t fun anymore so she closed it up and launched a new business, selling antiques in estate sale format just a couple of times a season. She loves it, is very good at it, and is successful.
Have you noticed that success seems to follow happiness? When you love your business, when you are happy with your clients and customers, you get rewarded by more sales. On the flip side of that, when you are unhappy in your business and you don’t enjoy your clients or customers, fewer and fewer start showing up as your business shrinks.
Choose HappinessHuman beings like to be around happy humans and will do more business with you when you are happy than when you are not, no matter what you are selling. Tamara doesn’t wait for happy to happen, she creates it by working at what she loves most.
On top of her estate sale business she loves farm life but with the real estate market being down the last five years, she and her family can’t move. They live in a typical urban neighborhood, not a farmhouse. But she didn’t give up her dream. Tamara kept looking and found a run down old farm within just ten miles. She researched the owner, who it turns out had relocated to California. She proposed that he allow her to lease his property for the price of fixing it up. He agreed. She needed no money, just sweat equity and she is entirely thrilled going to the farm daily to plant, care for chickens she has brought in, and transform the house.
Yes, she is hoping that at some point in the next couple of years, they’ll sell their home and buy his, but she isn’t counting on it. She counts on the happy she feels every day. Most people get into trouble when they make their happiness depend on some future event. Happiness is only ever possible in the moment you’re in, the future isn’t guaranteed.
I’D LOVE YOUR COMMENTS HERE ABOUT HOW YOU FIND HAPPY IN YOUR BUSINESS!
