Was it luck that my home staging career started in 2002, or was I just finally ready to follow my passion?

Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” I believe there’s a great deal of truth to that quote.

During one of my many house moves, I found a 5-year old newspaper clipping about the home staging industry.

I had saved it in a file called “business ideas.”

The irony was I had NO memory of seeing the article, much less saving it, a full two years before starting my own home staging business.

Readiness for a Home Staging Career

With no memory of having read about home staging, I thought I’d pulled the idea of being a home stager out of the air after selling my fifth house within 8 weeks of buying and redecorating it.

Yet, there was living proof in my business ideas file. Somehow I had already planted the seed and my subconscious mind had been thinking about it for 5 years!

There are so many points in life where we’re at a cross-roads. For every choice we make, we are by default choosing not to go with another option.

When we don’t follow our passions, each day we fail to modify our direction is a day we’ve chosen to keep things how they are. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have to throw out everything and start over. Perhaps it’s as simple as taking some action each day to move towards our dreams.

Luck of a Chance Conversation

Sometimes it takes an outside jolt like a cancer scare or job loss to shake us out of the status quo.

Or it could be a chance conversation with someone. They say just the right thing at the right moment. Suddenly we’re aware of the other opportunities that await us.

I was living comfortably and feeling secure in my career when I cut out that article. But, I always felt like there was something more that I was meant to do.

For years, I saved lists and articles in my “business ideas” file. I was hungry for any story about how others had reinvented their lives. They inspired me to believe it was possible for me to reinvent my career too.

Reading the home staging article in the 1990s (!), I thought about how a home staging career would allow me to combine my decorating talent and interest in real estate.

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind (in part because I had no interior design training).

The thought of leaving the security and credibility of the profitable business I was already running was terrifying— especially as a single mom.

Home Staging Career Meant to Be

I believe I was meant to get into the field of home staging. Looking back, I see how so much of what I did over the years lead me here.

But when I first learned home staging was “a thing”, I wasn’t mentally ready for the idea. Starting my home staging business, Six Elements, I finally experienced that there is nothing like spending your days doing something you love. Using your natural gifts and being well paid for it too.

Teaching others how to make a living in their own home staging business came later. After I’d received hundreds of emails from creative people wondering what my secret to success was. Like the articles I’d kept all those years, my own story of personal reinvention became the inspiring story to others who wanted to embrace their talents.

Recently, I heard from Jen, a human resources professional. She doesn’t feel passionate about her job because so much of her day has nothing to do with helping people. She’s tired of office politics.

Jen wrote me because during a chance conversation with a colleague, she admitted her thirst for something new. For whatever reason, this colleague saw something in her that she hadn’t yet seen in herself.

She asked Jen if she’d ever thought of getting into home staging.

A seemingly random suggestion. This colleague knew her as a human resources person!

Suddenly Jen realized what her true passion was. What had been missing from her career all along. She was full of excitement and a new-found positive energy. Realizing that being a home stager would allow her to help others (the reason she’d chosen a career in human resources in the first place).

So much in our lives can be attributed to a source we can’t see or explain. And timing can play a crucial role in what paths we take.

When it comes to following your heart, listen to that inner voice and pay attention. Prepare your mind to see the opportunities that are right in front of you!

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