A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new!

My 9-year-old daughter had a million questions around what it would mean when I started my own business. Would I travel? Would I be finished for the day when she got off of the bus? WHAT exactly would I be doing all day? How much “fun stuff” could we do this summer when she is out of school?

I never gave her a direct answer because I didn’t know a truthful response to any of them. A few sayings that Jesse and I have about our kids are to "never let them see you sweat" and "if you give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile!" I knew I needed to set expectations very low for my curious daughter. “I am going to be very busy, might travel, etc.” While she didn’t always like my responses, what she did always appreciate was WHY I was making a change.

My WHY has always been 1) more freedom and flexibility for my home and family and 2) to continue to help save lives. Helping to save lives as a part of my purpose, started way back when I decided to go to graduate school and studied ‘Corporate Wellness’ at American University in Washington, DC. The field has now evolved to be called ‘Employee Health and Well-Being’ but at its core, designed to help people lead healthy lifestyles including to help prevent chronic health conditions. (I’ll write more about how my views on ‘saving lives’ evolved to be an Instructor of Mental Health First Aid in a future post.)

My daughter's intuitive sixth sense and empathetic self must have picked up on a little of the fear in my voice when we’d have discussions about my adventure into entrepreneurship. She mounted this picture on a canvas and set it in my home office and told me she was proud of me. It colorfully reads "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." I mean, how special is that? So, I use this as encouragement as I plug away at things like website template bugs, broken DNS records causing my emails to bounce, and a million other things I’m doing for the first time! 

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new!” Albert Einstein