My Thanks

So, it's Thanksgiving week and we are all encouraged to list our thanks out loud and in a public forum (however did we do this before Facebook?). So, here's mine....

I am grateful that I was dropped into the world of the business of massage. By surprise. And that I didn't land on my head in the process.

About 10 years ago, I was hell-bent to join the teaching staff at my alma mater, the Potomac Massage Training Institute. I kept sending my resume to the Director of Education. She finally called me and said they were looking for someone to teach Business Practices, something I had zero background in.

However, they were desperate (not a lot of other MTs had any background in this either). I thought "well, what the heck, I can learn just about anything if I have to". So she handed me the previous instructor's notes and the COMTA requirements and said "good luck".

I have never worked so hard to learn something so I could teach it, ever. And discovered I enjoyed it immensely. I found it fascinating and challenging and darned useful. I also discovered I have a gift for making the complicated comprehensible and for encouraging people to not be afraid.

Fast forward 10 years....I taught Business Practices for several years. I've developed my own continuing ed in business topics and have even started a company to offer this continuing ed to the larger MT community.

Oh, yeah, and I write a business blog, which forces me to think of something new to say about business at least once a week.

Now that I think about it, I landed in my first profession -- technical writing -- much the same way. I was just out of college with a newly-minted journalism degree. I wanted a writing job. A friend said "I know a company who needs writers to write about computer stuff". I explained that I knew zero about computers. He said the company didn't care, figuring it was easier to teach writers about computers than to teach techies how to write.

I needed a job. I figured this "technical writing" stuff could hold me over for a year or two till I found the job I really wanted. I said "ok". Twenty satisfying years later, I left that field for massage therapy.

Lesson(s)?

The best adventures are often not in the direction you thought you were going.

Be willing to try (which also means being willing to fail).

Trust your ability to make the best of these "detours". They may just end up being your new path.