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I had a dream of owning a business before the age of 40, and I did that! It wasn’t as successful as I wanted it to be and I subsequently closed it less than 2 years after buying it, but I would do it all over again given the opportunity. I’ve walked a full marathon and 2 half marathons…and they were in amazing places! I’ve been blessed to be raised by amazing parents (all 4 of them) and amazing grandparents. This year I lost my 91 year old grandmother to cancer. It was a rough start to 2014 – my parents and I drove from Georgia to Connecticut twice in the wintery month of January and were able to spend some amazing last days with her. The first week we were there she had rallied and was more like the grandmother I remembered spending so much time with growing up. The second trip up we witnessed her very last words when she yelled as loud as she could muster “I love you” and that was the last we heard from her, and technically the last time I ever saw “my grandmother” – the woman I had known for 43 years. The next morning she was a shell of who I knew and by the following morning at 4:30 am we were receiving a call that she had been called home to Heaven.
I tell you all this because I want to say that looking back over my life, I thought I was invincible in my 20s. I would have never survived the opening and closing of my business and loss of my grandmother at that age despite the fact that back then I thought I could do anything and everything and nothing would keep me down. The plus side, however, is while in your 20s when things come your way you truly think you can do anything and you do make it work most of the time. And the other great thing is that it’s during those years that you start thinking through your hopes and dreams and realizing the ones you really want to move forward with, and you begin formulating how you will make them come to fruition. If I hadn’t continued thinking of my dream to own a business I never would have given it a try when the opportunity came up. And even though it ended in a way I hadn’t planned, I worked really hard to make it happen and I am extremely proud of myself for everything I did to get there!
No matter what your age – I hope you will think of my favorite quote “Never, never, never quit!” from Winston Churchill. Realize there are times when you should consider yourself invincible, times when it’s okay to let go, and times when it’s okay to “fail” because really the only true failure is never trying at all!