This morning I woke up inspired to write this post and talk about my business and the women I work with - share their successes and inspire other women to do what we do.... go after their dreams, pursue their passions and fill the void that's been lurking within.
About a year ago, as a working, single mom with two young girls, kissing them goodbye as I rushed out of the house each morning to make the 8:08 train into the city was literally the worst part of my day. I got to my office around 9:00 and worked until 5:25, to catch the 5:44, to get home to my girls by 6:30 to hang out with them for an hour before it was time for bed. Monday to Friday, I got to spend maybe 5-7 hours a day with my children. I felt that there was a huge void in my life. Something was missing. I was going about my life, doing the daily grind, making a living but I would come home feeling dull, uninspired, unmotivated and then I would get up the next day and do it all again. When I finally realized that each day I was leaving them to go and do something I wasn't passionate about, I knew something had to change.
I dug deep to figure out what else I could do that would allow me more time with them and would make me happy each day. I started to make a list of words that described my 'work-self' and then I made a second list to describe what I loved about 'working'. I wanted to live for my work as opposed to work for a living.
I'm a total type-A personality, a workaholic, passionate, motivated, driven, people-person.... the list goes on. When I got to the list of things I love about work, I kept coming back to 'fixing', 'finding solutions', 'researching alternative ways to make money', 'task oriented', 'knowledge sharing', 'mentoring', 'fostering'..... and there it was - I loved to FOSTER - not just people but also businesses. That was my void. I realized what I needed to do, so I put a plan in place to do what I 'wanted' to do.
I took my 12 years of owning and running a business and sat down with my laptop and wrote out my plan - the structure, the financial model, my anticipated expenses, my big ideas, my target audience and my next steps to get the business started. Had I not had the experience from all of my years of running a business, what took me a few short days to get done, would have taken months, maybe even years or possibly never.
After I started Foster Inc., so many women came to me and said, I want to be part of your groups and work with you but I don't have a business, just a few ideas. After the fifth person said this to me, I thought 'maybe I should start a group for women that are passionate about finding their purpose and filling their void'. And here we are.... my new series.... FosterU.
Some highlights of this six-week workshop will include:
- the necessary steps from finding your 'why'
- creating your vision
- understanding the fundamentals of starting a business
- building your brand
- defining the audience and how to market to them
- and structuring a model for launch and sustainability
On Wednesday night, July 15th at 9:00pm est, join me for a 30 minute preview of my upcoming program where I will get into more detail about FosterU and the contents of the 6-week workshop series.
Call or logon at: http://gowoa.me/i/67h8
You can also email me directly for more information at hayleybfoster@gmail.com. I hope you can join me.