I’m celebrating 17 years this week inside what I confusingly call a business, but that is that and much more.
17! 🎉
The thing I feel the most peace around with this anni can be expressed by sharing this: the other day at the Sausalito Art Festival, an art installation asked passersby to write what their dream job was on a post it.
There were 50, 60, 70 post-it notes on the wall. The uniqueness in the answers was inspiring.
“The one I have” was my answer and contribution to the wall.
There are, of course, larger goals on my writing timeline and inside continuing to help women reinvent and integrate all of who they are inside their chosen work and inside their brand expressions (make happiness your business by creating your authentic brand), but this work is (right) for me.
I attempted for eight years before these 17 to make myself into a shape that didn’t fully allow for what I was best at. The last 17 have been different. There’s been no contorting, just expanding.
Last Saturday, I made sure I tapped my Dad on the shoulder to show him what I wrote. I think in showing him, I also knew I was sharing it with my Mom, who, besides Dino, was my biggest fan (Nolan, on the other hand, told me earlier this week that he wouldn’t want to do what I do, but that he might enjoy Papa’s work). 😆
To each his own.
And that’s the point.
I think of what I specifically want for Nolan and it’s for him to find and express more of himself, and as unapologetically as possible inside the work he chooses to devote time to in his life (work that ultimately if it’s meaningful to him, will choose him).
It could be one career, two, three…it doesn’t matter as long as he feels his contribution does.
How we feel our lives matter makes work feel like something different than the word implies.
I’m dedicating this anniversary to my Mom.
Thank you, Nancy Motta Ghilotti, for making choices to express your own fuller [true creative self] by finally deciding to leave a situation that ultimately helped land me right here in this moment, about to pick Nolan up from school in this corner of the world that I enjoy so much.
It was your strength, along with Oma’s nudging, that ignited my fire and birthed this life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Thank you for being my cheerleader and my Creative Heroine, the woman who moves from problem to solution to express to the world who she *really* is.
Life is good,
Michelle Ghilotti
Success Designer, Brand Activator & Social Entrepreneur