Friday, May 13, 2011

Thanks for the inspiration

The past week or so I’ve noticed in some other blogs a common theme of “don’t be afraid to take a risk,” and the “follow your dreams” which have really gotten me to think a lot about where I’m going and what the heck am I doing.

It made me also think about a cousin of my husband who I admire for reinventing herself over and over again.  This woman, Judy, is not afraid of failing. She follows her dreams – takes huge risks. I thought I’d share her story here today.

Judy is about 50 years old, but she has demonstrated over the past 24 years that I’ve known her that she isn’t afraid to follow her dreams.

When I first met Judy she was a stay-at-home mom with her one child, Erika, but in her free time, Judy would paint.  She found a market for her paintings and sold them for quite a while.

Judy lives on the inter--coastal near Stuart, Florida, and she and her husband have owned a boat since they’ve lived there.  Judy took up deep sea fishing.  She enjoyed it so much that she entered contests and won several. She’s well-known in the area as the main “deep sea fishing” competition.

As Erika grew older and moved out of the house, Judy decided to go back to work.  She chose to be a real estate agent.  She excelled in that field as well and made a very nice salary for her efforts.

She tired of the real estate business and didn’t work for a short while when she decided one day to open her own cake business.  Judy recalled all the holidays that she had spent as a child where her aunt would bring a delicious rum cake to holiday events.  As an adult, Judy learned the recipe and made the rum cakes for her own family. 

One day she told us that she was opening Edible Spirits, and by golly, the next week she had rented a space, was baking rum cakes and selling them.  That was about two years ago. 

About every other week I see on Facebook where Judy has posted another milestone – new cake flavor, radio show guest, TV show guest, new large client – it’s just amazing.  Judy has once again, become very successful in yet another new profession.  Oh, she’ll tell you it’s been a lot of hard work, but that she really enjoys it.

As I am now looking at my own future with a bit of a better focused lens, I find Judy to be an inspiration for me to “follow my dreams” and “do it now.”  It is time!

3 comments:

  1. I visited her site. What an inspiration!

    Yeah for more focused lens. That's great that you have a mentor, too. You can do this. It's your time.

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  2. Judy sounds like someone I'd like to meet. She's a go-getter. No wonder she's an inspiration to you.

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  3. As I'm sure a lot of people are aware, most businesses fail in the first few years, let alone a food business.

    So it is amazing and inspirational that your friend said "Today it is a cake business" and it looks like the business is successful and growing!

    I just checked out her blog, too; it is amazing! She is shipping her cakes all over the world? WOW.

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