From Clown to Coach
🐔 Getting in a fight with a chicken is how I began my entrepreneurial career. Being a magic clown was great fun. Delivering a huge, beautifully decorated birthday cake to a child to share with his or her friends was a thrill. Entertaining the birthday child and guests with magic tricks and a puppet show gleaned squeals of delight and laughter. Ending the show in a fight with a chicken puppet and throwing feathers around brought the house down. Moving on from there, I went into doing commercials, voice overs, fashion modeling, plays, and even did a movie. It was called Something Special, but it wasn’t! 🤪
〰️The path to where I am today was not a straight one. Is it ever? The first job out of high school was as a file clerk. Then a secretary in a secretarial pool. When that company was sold to a company in Canada, I wasn’t invited. I got married and my then husband was in the restaurant game and he and I became a great server team. We built our own restaurants. When the marriage was failing was when I became Daffey Diane the Magic Clown. When the marriage took its last gasp, it was back to the job market, and I began college for the first time.
🚀 Finding a job with a recruiter in the aerospace industry, I worked during the day and attended school at night all as a single parent. The aerospace job ended, and I found a job as an administrative assistant for $8.00 an hour in a hotel. I tried to sell jewelry as a side hustle. I quickly moved from admin to the trainer position, to managing benefits, and to the hiring manager. Another move came and I went to work with a credit card company in Florida co-managing the office. Another move brought me back to Atlanta and I took a job as a trainer, in a manufacturing company. Then I became a corporate trainer for a pest control company. Then I went back to being an entrepreneur.
🏢 Starting my own company, I became involved in coaching, speaking, training, and assessments. Finding the path to my true love has been long, winding, and exciting. But this is what it takes to build a better career and business.
🤷♀️It’s rare for people to find what they love as their life’s work before or after college or even attending a trade school. There are, of course, exceptions. But people get stuck thinking they can’t make a change or if they do make a change in a career, they must start all over again, go back to school, get some certification, etc. etc. etc. People will often not even apply for a position because they fail to see the transferable skills that will fit the new job perfectly!
👨🏫 If you find yourself in such a quandary, do a self-assessment. Take a long look at your skills, attributes, and talents. Analyze job positions of interest and match what you bring to the table to what they are looking for and I can almost guarantee you that you will find more of what you have to offer than not.
🤩 Everything we do in life teaches us skills. We develop our strengths at every turn. We gain new attributes as we mature and gather experience. We can all use what we have where we are right now. Go for it! But if you still need help, let me show you how to discover your saleable, scalable, transferable skills! Let's get started
PS August 1-7 is International Clown Day. Kiss a clown just for fun!!!