Nancy Schwartz over at GettingAttention.org recently posed the question "What one book changed your professional life?" I remember the time in my life well when I discovered a book that changed my career course forever. It was early 2001 and my husband and I were beginning to plan for a family. We had been married for a couple of years and the time seemed just right. So there we were, two crazy kids believing that simply because we decided to have a baby that our plan for a family would soon come to fruition. Oh, were we to have a rude awakening!
At the time we began envisioning our bundle of joy, I was working for a nonprofit hospital foundation as a development director. I loved my job and had absolutely no plans of leaving it once the baby arrived but it was the arrival date that was quickly becoming the problem. Each month we were devastated that I couldn’t become pregnant. Devastated and mad, I should say. I became a woman on a mission – there would be a baby, by golly! And if any of you have ever gone through the pain of infertility you know that you will try anything – it is work trying to have a baby under these circumstances.
So, there we were trying anything and everything under the sun to become pregnant (I will spare you the details, don’t worry) and nothing was working. I think because we were having such a difficult time that I made up my mind that once my child made his or her appearance that I definitely did not want to go back to work. I wanted to be with this baby that was taking so long to get here. But what could I do? We were a two-income family and here I was having a desperate urge to stay at home. Holding a baby just doesn’t get bills paid. I was wracking my brain trying to come up with something to do when a friend of mine, also in nonprofit, announced that she was striking out on her own as a grant writing consultant.
I never even knew that was a career. Being in the nonprofit field, I had written some successful grants and knew that it was something that just pretty much required a computer to get the job done but I had never thought of doing it out of my home. Eureka! My friend told me about Bev Browning’s book How To Become a Grant Writing Consultant. Straight-to-the-point title – I liked it! I got the book and the rest, as they say, is history.
I am now celebrating my first decade as a grant consultant and was asked so often “How can I do what you do for a living?” that today I teach others how to make that leap. Just like Bev taught me ten years ago.
Yes, that was a book that definitely changed my life. And the baby that changed my life? Well, he decided to make his appearance in 2007 – a mere six years later than when we first began planning for him. I have to say, though, he was well worth the wait. :)
What about you? What book might change your life? Give my f.r.e.e. ebook You Can Become a Grant Consultant a try. It won't hurt and you might find it brings about just the change you were looking for! Let me know...
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written by Kirsten Bullock, May 31, 2011
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Thank you for sharing such a wonderful story. And congratulations on the determination to bring about that baby boy -- and to forge your own business and new career.
I made the leap to consulting when my youngest were seven years old. My husband, and now business partner, had started a freelance business a few years before. It felt so much better to me to be here at the end of the day when my sons got home from school and we were much better juggling our schedules so one of us could be here than when we were both working in an office full time plus, a luxury my oldest daughter didn't have.
It's now 15 years this month that Cause & Effect has existed. I've never regretted the decision.