Who was your first mentor?
Mine, hands down, was my dad. He was a very practical, simple man, a loyal family guy, a foodie and an entrepreneur.
I do believe that I got all my style, my business sense and the ability to figure stuff out from him. He was a great guy and over the past 13+ years that he has been gone, a day doesn’t go by where I don’t have a conversation with him. He was the one that always told me I could do anything I want and to follow my dreams.
When I started my business, Little Folk Art, he was the one who ran to Costco to get supplies, picked up lunch so I would eat and he was just the one who would hang out and marvel at what was transforming in front of him. He was my biggest fan and greatest cheerleader and put me on the pedestal that I deserved to stand on.
Oh how I wish I could have conversations with him today about all that I am creating. It’s taken me a long time to arrive here, many failures to figure out what this next chapter was going to look like and it was always him to tell me to follow my gut and just keep going. I let his voice vibrate between my ears when I go that yucky, dark place. Although not physically here, I know in both my head and my heart that he continues to guide, especially today as I am about to launch some really, really fun stuff.
I have had other mentors in my life, my first boss – Bernie Brillstein – he was a force and reminded me a lot of my dad. Who gets the chance out of college to work with such an icon? ME!! It had been way too long since I had had mentors like Bernie and my dad. I was seeking another mentor. I tried to align myself with other opportunities and business and find my “people”(in the biz world) but kept coming up short.
Then I found Amy Porterfield.
After being diagnosed with Cancer in July of 2016(and surgery, etc – I am fine today), I knew it was time to figure out this next act. Around that same time(and being a serial student), I became addicted to Podcasts. It was my daily, morning ritual – walk 4 miles and listen to something inspiring. I found Amy, how I find all great stories – curiosity. She was on someone elses podcast so I checked her out. I binged her Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast and through her – I found other great thought leaders.
Although Amy drove me to other great experts, I always circled back to her. So, when she started pitching her first ever Digital Course Academy back in fall of 2018, I listened. Then in January when she opened up the Academy – I signed up. I had NEVER signed up for anything like this before. And because it was such a big ticket – I paid attention.
Through her amazing ability to teach and be an inecredibly generous portal of information – I have been absorbing and marinating all this information. Now, those of you that know me, know that I am a marinator. I can’t help myself. But…..today I am proud to say that all of that stuff I got from her – is finally being packaged up into a nice, neat little package. I am getting ready to launch both a digital and physical product and I could not have figured any of this out if it wasn’t for her and her team.
If you are at all curious as to why I think she is in a class by herself, she has a few places you can check her out. One is for a Quiz – to see if you could possibly have some sort of digital product inside of you. And the other is a very cool 30 Day Kickstarter Bootcamp on Facebook.
As a proud partner of all of her programs, if you have any questions for me – DM me. I love talking about creating stuff from nothing!!!
P.S. dont judge the Farrah Fawcett hair – it was 1978 after all!
