Episode 123: Doing what you love for a living – with Donna Tashjian of Vibrant Living International

Being let go from your perfect job sounds like everybody’s worst nightmare.  But what if you could turn this negative into a positive?

In this episode, we’re joined by Donna Tashjian, a life mastery coach, ordained minister, podcaster, author and founder of Vibrant Living International.

Donna shares how she was able to start working in a field directly related to her passion, the importance of doing what we like to do, and the power of listening to expansive voices.

Today’s guest

Donna Tashjian of Vibrant Living International

Website: Vibrant Living

Email: Donna@iVibrantLiving.com

Instagram: DrTashjian

Facebook: Vibrant Living International

YouTube: Vibrant Living International

Donna is the founder of Vibrant Living International, a non-profit organisation. She is also a life mastery coach, an ordained minister, podcaster and author.  She helps bring accelerated transformation to people across the world and has been speaking and coaching for over 20 years.

Her passion is to help you reach your full potential.  She specialises in helping you turn your baggage into luggage so you can live the life of your dreams using and developing your spiritual intelligence.

Donna has developed powerful programs and workshops to help you through life’s transitions and challenges to achieve your goals or dreams. She says, “I will help you walk away from overwhelm, stress and self-doubt into peace and confidence, like a  refreshing vacation for your body and soul”.  

She also produces a podcast called “You Were Designed for Greatness” and has written  four books.  

Her clients say Donna has a knack for turning fear into excitement and exposing lies so the truth can shine through.

What you’ll learn in this episode

  • [1:34] What a life mastery coach does and the types of clients Donna works with.
  • [2:48] The different types of mentoring Donna has done throughout her life.
  • [4:13] Why Donna wanted to become a coach.
  • [4:59] The difficulties Donna faced when she was let go from her job at a non-profit.
  • [6:55] How Donna utilised the fact she got laid off and turned it into a positive.
  • [10:12] The feeling of getting fired and how you can respond to rejection.
  • [12:37] The importance of perspective and asking the right questions.
  • [14:57] How having a coach helped Donna on her journey to become a coach.
  • [16:25] The mindset you need to turn your passion into your work.
  • [20:50] When Donna first got a coach.
  • [21:35] How Donna’s coach helped her create a vision for her future.
  • [23:02] The different types of coaching and how to find a good coaching school.
  • [25:38] How long it took Donna to find paying clients for her coaching.
  • [26:18] The best ways to find coaching clients and where you can network.
  • [27:39] How many hours Donna spends coaching and what type of work she focuses on.
  • [28:50] How Donna wants to expand her business over the next five years.
  • [29:18] How to expand your business without increasing your hours.
  • [30:14] How group coaching differs from one-on-one coaching.
  • [33:51] How to get in touch with Donna.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Please note that some of these are affiliate links and we may get a small commission in the event that you make a purchase.  This helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you.

To see the resources recommended by all our guests, visit the Resources page.

Episode 123: Doing what you love for a living - with Donna Tashjian of Vibrant Living International

Jeremy Cline 0:00
Do you listen to limiting voices, whether it's a voice in your head or the voice of someone around you? If you hear that you can't do something, that something is not right for you, that you'll never be able to do that, do you listen? Do you let the voice prevent you from doing whatever it is? That's what we talk about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life.

Jeremy Cline 0:38
Hello, and welcome to Change Work Life, the show where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. Suppose you get a job, and you think it's the perfect job. It's just what you want to be doing. And then, you get let go. What do you do? How do you pick yourself back up again and move forward? That's what my guest this week had to do, and this week, we're going to hear how she did it. Donna Tashjian is a life mastery coach, an ordained minister, a podcaster and an author. She's also the founder of Vibrant Living International, through which she helps people turn their baggage into luggage, so they can reach their full potential. Donna, welcome to the podcast.

Donna Tashjian 1:22
Thank you. It is my pleasure to be here.

Jeremy Cline 1:24
Can you start by telling us a bit more about what you do? Minister, coach, podcaster, the cocktail party question, someone asks you what do you do.

Donna Tashjian 1:34
Life mastery coach is my focus. And my day consists of doing these, as well as meeting in groups, and one-on-one coaching is my primary focus of every day. So, helping people to live to their best potential is what I do.

Jeremy Cline 1:52
And do you have typical clients or people who come to you with particular issues?

Donna Tashjian 1:57
My passion is to help people to rise above the pain and disappointments of life, whatever that is, and then create the life they've always dreamed. And which is why one of my programmes is called Turning Your Baggage into Luggage, so that you can create the life you've always dreamed. So, that's my primary focus. And my primary coaching is mostly women.

Jeremy Cline 2:23
I really want to explore the story of how you got to be where you are now, because when we first met, you said that your first main job, as it were, was raising children, plus you did a few other bits and bobs. So, could you describe what that looked like? What the raising children, what it was like, what it involved and what the other bits and bobs around that were?

Donna Tashjian 2:46
Yes, I have three children, well, they're adults and married now, but I raised three children, and my husband worked 60-ish hours a week. So, predominantly, most everything in the household was left to me to accomplish. So, all of the taking people around to different events and all of the activities that kids have was part of it. During that time that I was raising them, I was also the director of a non-profit organisation, which organised churches to help people in need. So, I was also doing that while I was raising them, I volunteered at my church as well. I learned that I don't have to do everything, during that time I tried to do so much, but that was what my life looked like as I was raising the children. There was always a component where I was mentoring in my church, they would have called it discipling, but being an encouragement to people that were struggling with different things. So, all of the time I was raising my kids, that was part of my non-profit organisation, that was part of what I did. As long as I can remember, that's been a part of what I did.

Jeremy Cline 4:03
How do you think this has been something that you've ended up doing? Where does the desire and the skill of mentoring come from?

Donna Tashjian 4:11
Well, for me, personally, I believe that there's gifts placed in all of us, and this is one of mine. And so, I give the credit to G-d, who gave this gift to me, it's always been something, but I had, also helping people come over the pain and disappointment of life, I had a pretty difficult childhood. And so, I understand, I heard someone say, 'No one becomes a coach or a counsellor if they haven't had pain in their own life', and so, it was definitely my own story in my childhood of overcoming and rising above adversity.

Jeremy Cline 4:50
So, when did you start to think about entering the workforce? When was that something that you wanted to consider?

Donna Tashjian 4:58
My husband and I also had our own business. So, I went to work at a non-profit organisation to be able to feed that. I thought it was going to be able to feed the passion that I had to help people, do what I'm doing now, but in a different way. I didn't see it as big as I see it now. But we often, hindsight, you know, we don't. But I went to work at a non-profit organisation to be able to do what I thought I love to do, was to be an encouragement and to help people. And so, I began to work there, and it was going great for a while. Anybody else had that experience, it's like, this is going pretty good for a while, and then, the management changed, and there began to be conflicts and difficulties, every day was a struggle. But I had put all my hopes, all my eggs, if you will, in that basket. And therefore, I was tenaciously holding on to this job, because I've put all my hopes here, and it's got to work, and I'm trying to make it work. And then, I still remember, you remember events that happen, and I remember it was a March day, it was the 31st of March, at 11:30 in the day, and the weather where I live in Michigan, in the United States, in Michigan, it was where it can't decide if it wants to sleet, rain, or snow, it was one of those days, and it matched my face as I left the place, and they had let me go. And anyone who has lost a job, it was awful. I felt worthless. I didn't know where I was going, I felt lost. And I call that day one of the worst days, but one of the best days of my life. Because through that process of picking myself up off the floor, if you will, and figuring out, okay, what do you want to do, what do you really want to do now that you're all grown up, all your kids are grown and raised and have their own kids like, what do you really want to do? And the vision that I had was a red thread going through my life, and every place that red thread was is when I was sitting across from women predominantly, being an encouragement, helping them overcome different obstacles that have arisen in their life, and helping them be all they were created to be. And so, I said, 'Well, how do I do that?' I didn't really understand coaching was a thing. To me, coaching meant football coach screaming at you on the sideline, something like that. And I'm like, 'That's not me.' So, as I began to explore what coaching really was, I had lost a job, but my husband and I agreed, and I went back to school, and from there, got three coaching certifications, and I continue my education as well, to be able to do what I was naturally gifted at to a completely different level.

Jeremy Cline 8:25
I'd just like to pause there, and there's quite a few things that I'd like to dive into, but just going back to the job, how long had you been working at this place before you got let go?

Donna Tashjian 8:38
About two years.

Jeremy Cline 8:40
Okay. And in that two years, what was it that had given you such a sense of investment in the place that it made you want to carry on going, even as things were beginning to get difficult around you?

Donna Tashjian 8:55
As I look back, it really wasn't meeting all the needs or the gifts tapping into what was really in me, but it was as if I had limited myself to what that job was. But it did have a component where I was able to be an encouragement, able to be helping people, which is a primary passion of mine. But it didn't meet, I didn't do anything near what I'm doing today. There was so much limitations placed on that, but the fear of failure, the fear of not being good enough, to me, all of those things were how I was feeling it, which is why I was holding on with fear more than faith.

Jeremy Cline 9:42
That's a really interesting point. And I'm sure that's going to resonate with a lot of people, where you're doing a job, and you know it just doesn't feel quite right, it's not your life's work, it's not what you really want to be doing, but it's what you do, and you've been there a while, and you've got this fear that, if you do leave it or you get let go, that somehow it diminishes you.

Donna Tashjian 10:09
We, I say we but me, definitely, let other people's opinions, what other people have said about us, limit us. And the way that I began to word it is rejection, which losing a job feels, 100% rejection, rejection is somebody else's opinion. It doesn't mean it's truth. If you look at hairstyles and clothing and music, there is so many opinions of what people like. And so, it's just someone's opinion. And to begin to look at it like that, it doesn't have to define you, unless you let it.

Jeremy Cline 10:50
But when you were let go, was your primary feeling rejection, anger, disappointment? Was there any element...?

Donna Tashjian 10:58
Keep going, keep going, that list was all there.

Jeremy Cline 11:02
Was there any element of relief in it? If it hadn't been going so well, and management issues...

Donna Tashjian 11:09
It was relief that I was away from the new person that had come into the management staff. That particular person, it was a relief to be, I didn't care if I ever saw them again at that moment. But no, I don't know, other than that, I felt really hopeless and lost at the moment. It didn't stay there, but I did feel that way.

Jeremy Cline 11:34
It's interesting also how it's not just the opinions of those that we respect that influence, but also opinions of, maybe they are superiors or work colleagues, but they're not necessarily people that we enjoy working with perhaps, don't see them with the same respect as you see other colleagues, and yet, we still value their opinion and still feel hurt when their opinion of us is expressed to be maybe not so great.

Donna Tashjian 12:05
Yes. All of those things, lots of hurt and moving through that. Yes.

Jeremy Cline 12:12
Tell me a bit more about the process. So, once you'd been let go, what were some of the first things that you did after that point? I mean, was it immediately into a journey of self-discovery? Did you start thinking, 'Oh, my goodness, I'm going to have to start applying for other jobs'? What did the first few weeks and months after that look like?

Donna Tashjian 12:36
All immediately, go to bed and pull your covers over your head. That's just kind of what I actually felt like doing. I spent a lot of time praying and doing introspection, if you will, of what I really love to do and what is next for me. I did not rush to, like I said, we've owned our own business, a completely different kind of business for, when that happened, probably 15 years. So, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, if you will. And so, I didn't immediately think about another job. But I did need to find another source of income. Figuring out how that was going to look and how that would be was just a lot of journaling and spending time in prayer and introspection and seeking answers. When you begin to ask different questions, you get different answers. The question actually defines the answer. Let's use this one: does this dress make me look fat? So, the question, kind of, you know, it's like there's no good answer for that one. And so, learning that if I ask, 'What could I do?', as opposed to, 'I need to get a job', and 'What kind of job should I get?', or 'What could I do?', it's completely different questions and you're going to open yourself up to hear different things, to attracting different things and learn to have different connections that will occur, just by where I put my perspective. Perspective changes everything. We can be a bird's eye view, or a bug's eye view. And the grass, they still see it, but it looks completely different by where we ask the questions and where we put our perspective.

Jeremy Cline 14:33
A lot of people really struggle to get out of their own head. And that's why coaches like you exist, because one of the things you do is help people get out of their heads. So, when you were going through this exercise yourself, journaling and praying and so on, did you have anyone helping you or was this something that you filled out for yourself?

Donna Tashjian 14:57
One of the things that, when I decided to go to coaching school was when I had my first coaches myself, that was part of the process. So, prior to making that decision, it was me and my husband at that point. But once I made that decision, I had a coach to be able to help me to get a lot of clarity over what it occurred and where I was going from there.

Jeremy Cline 15:21
So, you'd made the decision to become a coach, and then it was at that point that you decided to get a coach for yourself. Before we come to the decision to become a coach yourself, you mentioned the family business, was this something that you ever entertained could be something that you could contribute to and build that, so that it became the additional source of income, because it was something that already existed?

Donna Tashjian 15:47
Yes. And we did that. We did build that up as well. The business is a property management company. And I was also a licenced realtor at the time. So, there was, but that's a self-employment, you know, you can make zero money or you can make a lot of money. So, both of those things were going on while I went back to school, that was happening to be able to have more income coming in, while I went back to school. Yes.

Jeremy Cline 16:18
And talk me through the thought process that led you to conclude, 'I want to be a coach.'

Donna Tashjian 16:24
I alluded to some of that when I was talking about the red thread going through my life, and then I asked the question how do I do that. How do I do what I actually love, what my passion is? And prior to that, most of my employment was around administration. So, administration has plans and boxes to tick, and you know, all of the things that you can check off. But when you're sitting and coaching people, it doesn't have a box to tick. You can't say, 'I've sit and had a cup of tea with you for an hour.' And there's no, so it was a complete shift in my mind of how do I do that. And as I asked that question, that's when I began to go down the path of I could be a coach, that would be doing that. And how do I do that, then? And then, where do I go to school? So, I began to ask those kinds of questions. And it was step by step that led me to choose the school that I chose, and then proceed through making those decisions. It felt a lot like Geronimo, it's like I'm jumping, and I have no idea if this is going to work, I have no idea how I'm going to pay for the school. I don't know how this is going to work out, but I'm jumping. And I'm going to give it all that I have. And we'll see how it goes. And it's been amazing.

Jeremy Cline 17:54
The "how do I do that" question, that is incredibly powerful. And I'm just thinking, so you take a step back, you look back at things that you've done, and you think, 'So, when is it that I've actually really been enjoying myself?'

Donna Tashjian 18:12
Exactly.

Jeremy Cline 18:12
When is it that I've thought, 'Ooh, this is good'? And it could be anything. I think the leap here is looking at that experience, and then thinking, 'Well, I enjoy that, so that's telling me something, how can I do that? How can I incorporate that into what I do for a living?' That's an incredibly powerful thing to ask yourself.

Donna Tashjian 18:36
That was when everything shifted. That's what I was trying to allude to before, when I was saying asking the right questions is not how can, you know, it's just exactly how can I, how do I do that. And that led me to the path that I am on today. A lot of us in our jobs are not happy. And there may be, I didn't particularly love real estate, but you need to keep doing it while you build the thing you love. And so, how can I do whatever is in your heart, you that are listening, ask that question, and then just watch for thoughts, ideas, somebody drops an idea into you, you see something in an ad or online that you never saw before. You just don't know what will occur when you begin to explore. Because you have gifts, and you have a passion in your heart. And you should live that and be all that you can be.

Jeremy Cline 19:39
And the second part of that, and it's something that you've alluded to earlier, is not listening to the limiting beliefs. So, not listening to the voice which says, 'I really enjoy doing this, I wonder if I could make that something that I can make a living from. Oh, no, that's silly, there's no way I can do that.'

Donna Tashjian 19:58
Absolutely. And I heard all those voices. Oh, you could never do that, you just got fired! Do you think you can do this? No. All of those. Oh, that's just ridiculous. You know, you'll never make it. Who do you think you are? La la la la. Yes, all of those voices. I want to encourage you to listen to voices that are expansive, because that's the real you, not the voices that are constrictive, not the voices that are limiting. But listen to the voice that's expansive, because that is where your sweet spot is. It is where it makes you really happy.

Jeremy Cline 20:39
Where did hiring a coach yourself come into the process? Had you already started with the coach training when you did that? Or was it something you did beforehand?

Donna Tashjian 20:49
It was part of the education that I signed up for, and I knew that when I signed with the coaching school, that was part of the process, they took us through, each of us that were going to be a coach got a coach. And if you hire a coach, and they don't have a coach, I would question that. Everyone needs a coach, everyone, because we can't see our own blind spots.

Jeremy Cline 21:15
I completely agree with that. And I didn't realise that coaching schools actually made that part of the coaching programme, but I think that's very...

Donna Tashjian 21:23
The one I went to did anyway.

Jeremy Cline 21:25
And what did the coach help you with initially, when you first started at coaching school?

Donna Tashjian 21:33
The main thing that we did, first of all, was to create a vision of the life I would actually love, without the limiting beliefs. And most of us can make a list of what we don't want. But it isn't so easy to make a list of what we do want. We don't know quite how to flip that switch all the time. And so, that was the initial thing, create a vision of what would you like your life to look like, what would you like, for me, my coaching practice to look like, and be able to create that vision. Because unless we have a vision, we can't move forward to it. The vision is what carries us through all of those limiting beliefs and moves us forward. So, that's the main thing that we began to do. And then, once that was in place, at least as much as I could see at the moment, then we began to address the limiting beliefs that were there.

Jeremy Cline 22:33
This sounds like a lot of work on you. And I think some people will be surprised to hear this, you go to coaching school, and it sounds like it's not necessarily learning to be a coach, but it's being coached yourself. So, can you expand on that? Was there a lot of effectively being coached? Presumably, there were also some skills, how to be a coach yourself, or did it all just kind of flow into one big thing?

Donna Tashjian 23:01
There was a definite curriculum where there was times where there was coaching available. There was group coaching where they would speak to a whole group of us coaches. There was one-on-one. There was a curriculum that we had to accomplish. And all of that was part of it.

Jeremy Cline 23:19
And when you were selecting the school in the first place, what was it you were looking for, and what comparisons did you make with other schools that made you choose this one?

Donna Tashjian 23:30
One of the things I say about myself now is, I don't want to help people deal with their mountains, if you will. I don't want to help you deal with your problems, to get coping skills to deal with them, I want to help you learn how to eliminate the mountain altogether, so we don't have to keep coping with it. And I chose the school I had, we called it transformational coaching, because it dealt with how the brain worked, it got into the nitty-gritty of how our brain works and how we make decisions and how behaviour happens, so that we can make lasting change. It's different than, let's use diet for example, for three months, I'm going to go on a diet or you know, whatever it is, and after that I go back to acting the same way I did before, eating the same way I did before. That's not what I want. I want lasting change, so that when at the end of your will, if you will, using that as your, you know, I'm just going to do this by my willpower, when that stops, the change continues, because it's been a change deep inside you, not just on the surface.

Jeremy Cline 24:48
So, as well as will, I guess it's habits, kind of ingrained mental habits. Is that right?

Donna Tashjian 24:54
Yeah, and habits, but the belief system behind the habits. Like, for me, example, believing that I failed because I had lost the job. So, was that true? Or was it actually the best thing that ever happened to me? So, it's changing how I'm looking at the whole situation. It wasn't a great fit. And so, learning to be able to shift my belief systems around events that have happened to us, and I have had a lot more traumatic events than losing a job, but that's the one we're talking about today.

Jeremy Cline 25:32
How long did it take after finishing the coaching school to get your first paying client?

Donna Tashjian 25:38
While you're in school, you begin to get, they call them practice clients. But I had people paying me before I graduated.

Jeremy Cline 25:47
Wow, how did that feel?

Donna Tashjian 25:49
It felt good. And there was a lot of limiting beliefs around how much you could charge, and anytime you're in money kind of entrepreneurs, it's like, well, what do I charge for this? And you know, what's the investment people are going to make? And so, that was a process as well. But yeah, I got clients right away. I'm not bragging, but just truth. I'm really good at this.

Jeremy Cline 26:15
What was the source of your clients? How did they come to you?

Donna Tashjian 26:18
The source at that particular time was sphere of influence, as well as I was involved in networking groups, and just began to get the word out. It ended up being a lot on social media as well, but at first, it was all in-person things.

Jeremy Cline 26:35
So, what sorts of events, what sort of networking? I mean, I'm aware of things like BNI, Business Network International, that kind of things.

Donna Tashjian 26:43
Yeah. At some point, I did join BNI. There's a lot of networking groups. And they had all different kinds of titles, but anywhere, because my primary client is women, wherever women were gathering, I wanted to be there. So, there was a lot of that, all different kinds.

Jeremy Cline 26:49
And would this come from you presenting at these networking groups? Or is this you just sort of going along, grabbing a drink and talking to random people and telling them what you do?

Donna Tashjian 27:12
Some of both, where I would be presenting and sharing information, and as well as just, I would meet people at the groups, and then I would meet them later one-on-one for a coffee and get to know them better, and see if there was any way that I could be a help to their life.

Jeremy Cline 27:30
What does your coaching practice look like now, in terms of things like number of clients you see, number of hours you spend a week, that kind of thing?

Donna Tashjian 27:39
The coaching number varies somewhat from month to month. There's people coming in and people leaving, but I average around 40 hours a week working.

Jeremy Cline 27:49
And is that what you envisaged? Is that what you hoped it would be?

Donna Tashjian 27:53
Right now, I'd have to say yes, it's exactly where I hoped it would be. Do I have bigger visions and goals? Always. I still have coaches. And so, yes, that's continuing to grow. But the things that have transformed as I continued my coaching practice is, I have a really clear focus. My first connection with clients is turning your baggage into luggage. Let's get over our crap. Let's get over the stuff that's happened to us in life, and to be able to move forward. And from there, my second programme is called Life by Design, Not by Default. Now that I've got my luggage packed, what do I actually want out of life, and how do I get there? And so, those are my primary focuses that I help people through.

Jeremy Cline 28:40
And you said you've got some grand plans, so what might your business or what do you hope that your business might look like in, say, the next five years' time?

Donna Tashjian 28:49
I eventually want to, well, I want to expand the number of people that I'm reaching and increase my groups. And so, that is one of my goals as well. And I also can see training other coaches to be able to do what I do.

Jeremy Cline 29:06
And how will you do that whilst maintaining your time, unless you're someone who wants to go from working 40 hours a week to working 80 hours a week? I don't know, maybe that is what you want to do.

Donna Tashjian 29:17
Well, more of the admin stuff that I currently do, I have a part-time personnel, to have them go full time and take on more of that activity, and also, one of the reasons why is I can reach more people in groups, because if I can reach a group of 10 in the same amount of time as I reached one, you can increase the groups as well, and you can also reach more people when you also have other coaches working for you and doing part of the work.

Jeremy Cline 29:49
How does group coaching work compared with individual coaching? You know, on the one hand, obviously, there's more people, I suppose, you can bounce ideas off, but I suppose one thing that I found with the coaching experience is you can get very personal with it when you've got someone and their sole focus for the hour you have together is on you.

Donna Tashjian 30:13
Both of them are powerful for different reasons. The one-on-one, as you said, it's very personalised. The other thing in the group that brings is the feeling that I'm not alone, and somebody else has asked a question that you wish you knew you wanted to ask, to be able to, and there is a camaraderie that occurs. The synergy that occurs and in groups is amazing.

Jeremy Cline 30:39
And how long do you think you're going to be doing this for? Is this something which you're going to build up and then retire and see the world when we're allowed to go and see the world? Or is this your vocation which you're now going to carry on doing for as long as you possibly can?

Donna Tashjian 30:55
As long as I possibly can.

Jeremy Cline 30:57
That's brilliant. This has been a really interesting exploration of your journey and what you've been doing. Along the way, are there any resources, tools, books, quotes that have helped you, that have kept you going, that the audience should check out and take a look at?

Donna Tashjian 31:15
One of the quotes that one of my coaches gave to me early on, that has made an incredible difference, and I still review it periodically, there was a period of time I read it every day, affirmations and declarations are incredible, and to be able to change the limiting beliefs into expansive beliefs, but the quote was: 'To get up every day and proceed as if success was inevitable.'

Jeremy Cline 31:43
To get up every day and proceed as if success is inevitable. I really like that.

Donna Tashjian 31:49
Because most of the time, we get up every day and worry about how not to fail. And remember, the questions create the answers. And if I'm getting up every day and behaving as if success is inevitable, it changes my actions, it changes my connections, it changes my frame of reference. That statement is so powerful. And to get up every day and proceed and behave as if success is inevitable, whatever success means to you.

Jeremy Cline 32:24
And it will get you there. It puts me in mind of something that a previous guest, Nicole Akong, said when she was talking about her jewellery business, she said that she planned to be an overnight success within two years. And I think it comes from the same kind of wisdom, she knew that everyone sees an overnight success and thinks, 'Whoa, where did that come from?' But it's from this mindset that you've just enunciated and having that for the period until, yeah, it does happen, and suddenly, you do spring onto the scene with the success that you want.

Donna Tashjian 32:58
One of the people, one of my clients said, 'Donna, you're a walking miracle.' And I thank them, but I'm thinking this miracle took a lot of decisions every day. It's that daily choosing to keep moving forward, to keep looking forward, not looking your rear-view mirror, but to look in your windshield, because you can't drive your car down the road looking in your rear-view mirror. And we try to drive our life by looking in the rear-view mirror of failures and mistakes and all the kinds of things that are, again, constrictive. And so, get up every day, because you are amazing, and let's take one step at a time.

Jeremy Cline 33:41
Where can people find you? If someone wants to get in touch with you, where's the best place for them to go?

Donna Tashjian 33:48
I'm on social media, my name is unusual, as well as my website is a wealth of information, there is a lot of free resources. And you can also schedule a complimentary consultation to go a little deeper and learn a little bit more, get to know each other, and get some clarity on your life. And my website is I, the letter, ivibrantliving.com.

Jeremy Cline 33:56
And I'll put a link to that in the show notes for this episode. Donna, thank you for coming on the podcast. You have been an absolute breath of fresh air. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Donna Tashjian 34:23
My pleasure, Jeremy. Thank you.

Jeremy Cline 34:26
Okay, I hope you enjoyed that interview. It's been a while since I've focused on my guest's story rather than exploring a particular topic with them. And that interview with Donna was just a great reminder for me as to how much you can learn just by listening to someone else's personal experience. So many lessons that Donna learned as she went through her journey that you can take and apply to your own. Two things to draw out in particular, one was what Donna was saying about listening to expansive voices. So, don't listen to the voice that says you can't do something. Listen to the voice that says you can do something, or maybe you might be able to do this. And that ties in with the second point, which I absolutely loved, this idea of looking back and remembering what it was that gave you joy, and thinking to yourself, 'How can I do more of that?' As Donna said, questions are powerful, and that one in particular is a really powerful question. So, I definitely encourage you to ask yourself that one. As usual, there's show notes on the Change Work Life website, there at changeworklife.com/123, that's changeworklife.com/123. And there you'll find the full transcript, summary of everything we talked about and the links to where you can find Donna and the resources mentioned in the episode. And to help you answer that question, 'How do I do that?', if you haven't already, do check out the exercises on my website, there at changeworklife.com/happy, that's changeworklife.com/happy. There's a couple of exercises there, and one of them encourages you to go back and look at previous jobs, previous roles, previous positions, and remember what it is that you particularly enjoyed about those. Doing that exercise will give you some great clues about the sorts of things which you really enjoy doing. And you can use that as a basis when you ask yourself the question, 'Okay, so how do I do more of that?' So, the website again, that's at changeworklife.com/happy for those exercises. There's another great interview coming up in two weeks' time, so subscribe to the show if you haven't subscribed already, and I can't wait to see you next time. Cheers. Bye.

Thank you for listening!

If you have any questions or comments, please fill out the form on the Contact page.

I would be so grateful if you’d:

Support the show today!