By Lisa Steadman (Excerpt from WE Magazine for Women Fall Success Alchemy)
The journey from Boohoo to Woohoo in love, life, and business is never easy. Nor is it ever fully a one way trip. And yet here’s what I know for sure about taking the slow, steady steps from rock bottom to rock star ¨C every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears shed along the way are well worth it. And not just for the sake of the journey, but also for the Woohoo of riches on the other side.
Let me start by sharing briefly my own journey.
The year was 2004. I had just turned 33. On the outside, it looked like I had it all: A fabulously fun job at the world’s most iconic toy company that paid me handsomely and allowed me to play with my childhood icon on a daily basis ¨C Barbie. A luxury condo. A cute boyfriend who worked 3 cubicles away. And while he had made it clear from Day 1 that he was nowhere near marriage material, I spent time daily, daydreaming about our happily ever after ending.
Conventional wisdom says that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
And God was definitely laughing at me way back when. Little did I know, he had other plans for me.
Enter physical pain. Specifically, in my forearms as tendonitis, which made my job as a full time professional creative copywriter difficult if not impossible.
Enter creative injustice. The company I worked for, stinging from a lawsuit with a former employee over intellectual property, asked all of its corporate creatives to sign a contract relinquishing ownership of any and all creative ideas to the company.
Enter Big Breakup. After numerous attempts to make Mr. Wrong into Mr. Right, it had become abundantly clear that my happily ever after was NEVER going to happen.
And so I quit. Everything. The job. The boy. My condo. In that order. I invested in voice software and began talking to my computer. I began shopping a book idea around based on the breakup website I launched the week after leaving my job.
I told the boy never to call me again and meant it this time.
I rented out my condo, moving in with my best friend and sleeping on a blow up mattress on his living room floor.
Some called me homeless and jobless. I called me HAPPY. And so began my Boohoo to Woohoo journey.
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