Stacy's Story

I was a good girl growing up. I followed instructions, did what I was told, cared about what my family, teachers and friends thought of me and tried to do right by them.

I was told that the path to happiness was to work hard, do well in school, give 110%, be tough, get good grades so I could get into a good college, and get a degree that would allow me to get a good job and support myself.

I was a good girl so I followed the script and did what I was supposed to do. I got good grades, went to college and got a degree as a chemical engineer. I got a job right out of college making good money that allowed me to rent a nice apartment and buy a new car. I should have been on the path to happiness, only I wasn’t.

I was “laid off” from my first job because I refused to be a pawn in the political maneuverings of my boss’s boss. So when I got my second job I worked even harder, gave 120%, and within a few years was promoted to technical manager – the youngest technical manager in their Research & Development group and only the second female.

Now I had a good job, prestige and a good title. I was happy, right? Not so much. Okay, not at all.
I had a boss who was a nice guy who hated conflict. Unfortunately this meant that, although he told our team to make quality our priority, he was unable to say no to sales and marketing, and would make promises that conflicted with the priorities he gave us. You can imagine the conflict and dissatisfaction this brought into my work life.

This caused me much stress. Why wasn’t I happy? I had followed the rules as I understood them. What was wrong with me? I had a good life. Shouldn’t I be happy? Why wasn’t it enough?

I began to dread going into work. On Mondays I would wake up wondering how in the world I was going to get through the day, let alone the week or another 40 years. In the evenings I found that even after a 45 minute commute home I needed a half an hour or more to “veg” on the couch until I started feeling more like myself and could interact with my husband, Dave.

Dave and I met at my first job.  I often joked with him that we should have remained co-workers, because we had far more quality time when we worked together than we did as a married couple.  I was trying to make light of how I felt, but I knew I didn’t want to live my life like this. I was tired of wishing away the weekdays and living for weekends and our meager vacation time.

 

I wanted to understand where I had gone wrong and “fix” it. So, I started reading. I read the help wanted section to see if I could find a job that sounded more appealing than my current position (after two bad corporate experiences, I couldn’t), I read job search books, I read self help books, I read articles on happiness.  Luckily for me at this time I also met a life coach. This was over 15 years ago and the first I had ever heard of life coaching. But I grabbed onto her like a drowning swimmer to a life preserver and started the process of identifying what my life would need to look like for me to be happy.

It took me a while to start to figure that picture out. I think it was the first time that I turned to myself for answers to that question. For so long I just followed the guides that had been provided to me. I didn’t know that I was allowed to choose for myself! Or that I could choose to love all parts of my life!

As I was wrapping up my sessions with my coach, my husband and I found out that I was pregnant – with twins!! This was a blessing in many ways, including that we decided after their birth that it didn’t make sense for me to return to work and place them in day care. What a happy day and wonderful gift that was!

Being home with our girls gave me the space to really start thinking about what is important in life.  After many conversations, Dave and I decided that we wanted to take more control over our lives and to spend more time together as a family. Self-employment seemed a good way to achieve these goals.

For the first year of motherhood all of my time was focused on care and feeding of our little babies. But as they got older, I found myself with tiny bits of free time.  I used that free time to start building the life I had imagined during the sessions with my coach. And I continued to read and study and learn about topics such as self improvement, life coaching, law of attraction and living a life I love.

The two careers that I had unearthed as appealing to me during my work with the life coach were to be a fine artist and to be a life coach. I initially discounted the second one as being a side effect of my extreme gratitude for my life coach and all she had taught me.

 

So in the early 2000’s, I started pursuing fine art as a career.  Over the next few years I took my art business from selling a few packs of note cards to family and friends to regularly selling originals and having gallery representation of my work.  I find the creative process to be deeply rewarding and still producing and sell originals in both watercolor and charcoal.

During an art event in 2009, four of my friends, in three separate conversations, talked about wanting to live their dreams rather than just settling for their current careers.  I am not a believer in coincidences, so I took this as a sign and created the Lehigh Valley Dream Team. 

The Dream Team was a vehicle for sharing all I had learned on my own journey to build a life I loved. We met monthly for two years and used our meetings as a forum for discussing the big goals in our lives as well as the challenges we faced in achieving them.  This team provided a wonderful accountability and support for this group of friends and helped launch the successful start-up and expansion of several businesses.

Meanwhile, I continued focusing on my own personal development, taking several online programs with business and life coaches.  I also convinced Dave to work with a business coach to accelerate the growth of his financial planning practice so he could fully transition out of his corporate job and into self employment.

As we worked together on his coaching coursework, it became obvious that I had the desire to help people pursue their dream life in a bigger way. Turns out my career aspiration to be a life coach was not just a reflection of my gratitude for my first coach. Dave, having experienced the energy and joy of working with the Dream Team also had the strong desire to help people in this way. Thus, our Accelerate Your Dream Life coaching business was born in 2012.

 

Using what we learned through our own experiences and studies, our business is dedicated to helping people accelerate their own journey to a more fulfilling life. If you are tired of waiting for “someday” and are ready to transition from the life you have to a life you love, contact me to see if I am the right person to support you in getting started TODAY.

Dave's Story

It was the year 2000 or "Y2K" when we were all scared that the world's computers were going to crash and civilization as we knew it would end.

My world was not coming to an end, but it seemed at a standstill.

I was 30, had been working in a corporate job for eight years and was frustrated. I was fed up with the office politics, the lack of flexibility of and control over my schedule, and the amount of time my job took me away from my family.

It was during this period at I expended two defining moments.

The first occurred while I was still on the fast-track for advancement. I was one of two final candidates for a major promotion. It would be a significant pay raise; however, it would also mean more travel, more hours, more politics, and more stress. I came home and explained the opportunity to my wife Stacy, then added, "The only downside is I have the potential to absolutely hate this job."

She immediately replied, "Then why even consider it?"

She saw clearly that, while the job would give us more money, it would also give us less of the things that were most important to us - a calm family life, time together as a couple, and control of our "free" time.

The next day I removed my name from consideration and effectively removed myself from the fast track.

Stacy and I started discussing how to get more of the things we really wanted in life. We decided pretty quickly that working in a corporate job wasn't the way.

My first attempt in our "Escape from Corporate" plan was to take my love of writing and try my hand at becoming a children's book writer. However, after two years of unfocused effort, and a total of $25 in revenue, I started questioning the haphazard manner I was pursuing this goal.

The second defining moment occurred during this time of questioning. One night I turned to Stacy and said, "I don't want to be sitting in this exact same spot having this exact same conversation when we are 40." It was a sobering thought and made us realized that we needed to take a different approach.

This led to philosophical discussions about how to get more fulfillment from our careers along with the money we needed to support ourselves.

I knew even then that I feel most fulfilled when I am helping others. For some time I had been helping family members and friends with their finances and investment strategies and I always enjoyed my time spent on this.

I also knew from my responsibilities as a corporate spokesperson on technical matters, that I am skilled at explaining complex technical subjects in an easy to understand manner.

Plus, there were some other aspects of my corporate job which I enjoyed, such as working with and analyzing data and brainstorming creative solutions to problems.

The insights from our discussions led me to enroll in an online program to become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. I completed the coursework and passed the exam in 2007. After a few years of interning with another planner, in 2010 I opened my own financial planning practice, Rowan Financial LLC, and began helping people with their personal finances.

As my business grew, I started studying the lives and work of successful entrepreneurs and I signed up to work with a couple of business coaches. I knew that the more successful I could make my business, the more people I could help.

As I worked with more clients and continued my studies, I got even clearer on my purpose.

Stacy and I realized that we love encouraging our friends and family to reach for their dream lives. And with my financial planning clients, I found that once we had the standard topics covered, our conversations often turned to how I could help them create the financial foundation for building the life of their dreams. This is the part of my new career that I enjoy the most!

Twelve years have passed since I turned down the job I had the "potential to hate" and I am so grateful for Stacy's insight into that decision.

I now have a thriving financial planning business, I am in the process of transitioning out of my corporate job, and, most importantly, my actual life looks remarkably like the life Stacy and I dreamt about. My days are more fulfilling, I am living my life with purpose, and I am enjoying quality time with my family.

Using what we learned through our own experiences and studies, together Stacy and I opened our coaching business AccelerateYourDreamLife.com. Our business is dedicated to helping people accelerate their own journey and transition from the life they currently have to the life of their dreams.

If you are tired of waiting for "someday" and are ready to love your life, contact me to see if I am the right person to support you in getting started TODAY.