Just do it

That was one of my main takeaways from the Journey 2 Success conference on Tuesday.  A great message for women entrepreneurs to hear.

So often we second-guess ourselves and want all our ducks in a row before we go further with our plans.  But there are no guarantees in life, and sometimes if we wait too long, we lose momentum and it never happens.

As I listened to our panel members -Brenda Halloran, Toni Morgan and Lindsay Rice – each of them had an ambitious goal for themselves, and steadfastly went after their dream.

In Brenda’s case it was to become mayor of Waterloo.  With limited political experience and limited funds, she threw her hat into the mayoral race.  She made us all smile when she confessed that she and her friends had limited political experience – for example –she chose to go with turquoise as her campaign colours because of a mug she liked.  Very much the outsider in the race for mayor, she’d been dismissed by her competitors, only to beat them on election day.

For Toni, she wanted to go to Harvard, which for someone who had been homeless as a teen, seemed like a pipe dream.  But don’t underestimate this young woman, who crowd-funded her way to Harvard and recently completed her masters in education. 

Lindsay chose to become a racing car driver, a lonely and different path for a young woman to pursue.  Like Toni, it took money and guts to make this dream a reality, and not only did she make it happen, she’s winning.   At 23 she explained she was late to enter this career, but she is certainly making up for lost time.

Our next speaker, Molly Burke, further emphasized the need to just follow your dream because when you do, you are living your life to the fullest.  With wisdom beyond her years, Molly shared how being blind was not holding her back – she travels, rides, surfs and rock climbs – which some of us wouldn’t dare to do and we have our sight. This gutsy young woman showed us that we need to get out of our own way and just go for it.

All four women are role models.  They are trailblazers, leading the way so the rest of us can pave our own journey to success.