Valerie Hausladen and Marcie Finney
I’ve written extensively about the power of friends, having support to help you stay on course and avoiding naysayers (including your mind) while you pursue your dreams.
Today the Austin American-Statesman wrote an article entitled: A coffee with… Marcie Finney and Valerie Hausladen: A friendship steeped with admiration, success about one of my incredible friendships. Marcie is a talented jewelry designer and inspiration who I’ve written about before (see an earlier blog called Seeds of Change). Today’s article in the Statesman tells of the ways we support each other.
And it also talks about Professional Destiny (of course!) and gives the first press about my upcoming book…
A key takeaway is this: the path toward doing what you love always has a few bumps along the way, but if you have good friends and strong support, you’ll find that the road seems just a bit smoother.
Enjoy!
October 28, 2010
This is the story of Marcie Finney—a former ad designer turned entrepreneur of Seeds for Goodness, a fast-growing, eco-fashion brand that creates stylish, earth-friendly jewelry and adornments. It’s an inspiring Professional Destiny story of her choice to thrive, and make a difference.
“My entrepreneurial spirit started eight years ago. I had been working in an advertising agency, but knew it was time for me to go out on my own as a freelance designer. I loved my client interactions and wasn’t getting enough if it in the agency, so I struck out on my own. I do love design and it’s a gift. In particular, I love seeing an idea come to life. Yet, I always knew I’d do some-thing else, but I didn’t quite know what.
A clue was that when I was young, my friend and I teamed up in school and made necklaces. I even sold enough pieces to buy a pair of rollerblades! I always loved to make my own funky pieces, but that’s as far as it went.
Over and over again, people told me that they loved my usage of color. All of my work is colorful. In fact, if you don’t like color, you’re not going to come to me. I like vibrancy! My gift in the design sense is that I’m meant to bring color into whatever form I create.
Every year I take a trip to reflect. It’s a quiet time for me to ask myself: ‘What do I want? Where am I going?’ It’s necessary for me to pause and just get quiet. I went to Cabo and during that time, felt my life was going to shift. I knew it, but didn’t know what it was shifting to.
Unlike most people, I always wear my jewelry when I practice yoga. After Cabo, for two months straight, people would comment on a piece I was wearing. It was every day, everywhere I went—at yoga, at grocery stores, you name it. They’d say: ‘can I buy your jewelry online? Will you sell me the piece you’re wearing?’ I asked myself – ‘do I need to do anything with this?’
A month later my friend Tony called me and asked me what I was doing besides design. He told me ‘you need to pursue it, it’ll be huge… bigger than you think.’
Some of the best things come when you least expect it. I was going about my day and I suddenly got an intuitive message loud and clear. It was ‘you need to work with seeds.’ I didn’t really know what it meant, but I started to do research about seeds and I was blown away. The colors, the texture were unbelievable – and so me! The trumpets started playing!
I said ‘I’ll do it’ and the universal doors flew open. It’s been a little over a year journey now. Aveda became interested in my line and has become a large client. There are several retail locations where my jewelry is placed in Austin, and it’s expanding into Dallas. I can see the momentum – everything I stock in a store will sell out. I feel like it has a life of its own, and it’s a lot of work, but totally fulfilling.
Most exciting is that the name for my line literally came to me—“Seeds for Goodness.” I chose that name because in this world, we can get hardened—we may not recognize the goodness in our lives. I wanted to remind people. All good things start from something small and it was perfect that I was working with seeds. You have to nurture them; you have to let them grow. You can’t just walk away. You need to expect the goodness that lies inherent in the seed to grow. This is a greater symbol of who we are. We all are these amazing seeds that have so much potential within us, and we need to nurture that potential. For example, if we’re doing something we don’t really love—if we’re doing something just to exist—we’re not to thriving. Seeds are meant to thrive. So are we.”
September 14, 2009
