welcome to daring to dream a show of inspiration hope and practical advice for living the life of your dreams i'm susie spidy and as a life coach and speaker i help people get really clear on the dreams they have for their lives and take action to make them happen i often hear people say i don't have time to figure out what my dream is have you ever long to have the time to really figure out what you want to do with your life have you ever dreamed of quitting your job and taking six months to explore your passions and find your true calling well we'll be talking to a woman today who's doing just that janet corson quit her corporate job as an id professional sold her house and even changed her name she wiped her slate clean and is literally starting over with her dog patches she's hitting the road tomorrow for a six month road adventure to explore what she wants to do with her life and where she wants to live janet corson a true daring dreamer janet has been working for the past twenty years in corporate id and project management positions she's survived two company acquisitions and thirty two layoffs she's always been a hard worker supporting herself and her husband while putting him through college in the school but after seventeen years the marriage ended in janet was able to focus on herself for the first time in her life she's doing what so many people would love to do starting over wow come jad it thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story with thank you for having me so you're literally hitting the road tomorrow yeah i sing off on your journey for six months it is a journey it's so exciting you know i have no house now only up the recording happened today and we packed up the car and we're heading so wow wow it's all it's in real time it really is yeah yeah we're so we're we're honored to be able to to be recording it with you and and be there and sharing it with you so to give people a little idea of kind of how you got to this point let's go back a little bit and give a give our viewers a little background so you grew up in california i did i grew up in san diego i went to school in san francisco bay focused on a business major and in the positions that i held over time i got from administration to bookkeeping and then i got into software implementation in the accounting industry and then when i came to new england eleven years ago i just continued with that career path of implementing software where i wrote a book keeping departments well so so you've been kind of in a steady career path moving you know up the corporate ladder from one position to the next in yeah and you mentioned my position in project management i didn't want to go up the corporate ladder to manage other people and so project management made a really great fit for me because i could be responsible and have seniority in my career history yet not be responsible for managing i people always isn't a good track for everyone and i recognize that in me that's an important thing to recognize yeah and where i ended up is in project management and also process engineering and those two activities are all about getting tasks done and understanding the progression of events and definitely serves as a good everyone asked me what are you going to do what are you going to do and i really didn't have i still don't have a play ends for six months will unfold but i absolutely had a major project to get to today and it involved i gave six months notice at my work so that my responsibilities could be easily that's that's unusual yeah itself to give to give that much time and it was it was important for me to make sure that after the career i had invested for myself that someone would pick it up and keep it going i know this would not have appropriately transition responsibilities and so i have a great replacement person from my responsibilities he immigrated from india i actually trained him in india in january so i got a little adventure there and then he came in february and i continued to transition him and then we had a major project the last two weeks he took care of business and i watched him do it and then i left and people comfortable walking out the door and i feel that my career in this for quite a while seventeen years right yeah and that was you first got married when you were in the so in california and you know early twenty's or so right mid twenty's yeah yeah and my husband was in school at the time and i ended up coming here from my job at the school population in new england is a great selection in picking a school here and finishing that out and so i had my drive and he had his mission and yeah and it seems from from from our conversations it seems that a lot of ways that you were kind of supporting his dream or supporting the mission of you as a couple that's true yeah as opposed to you really focusing on yourself and i think you know two years after my divorce i'm able to reflect back on how driven i was for our purpose  my career was always my own and when i left my marriage and that was a great personal accomplishment for me and all the efforts i had put into having the house and just that traditional family life  i and when i was by myself coming out of that relationship there was only one person to look after and i had been in many years since i had twenty years since i had been completely by myself to make those life choices it was heartbreaking divorce it was really important for me not to have too much continue on in my life and definitely not to be a resentful person or a better person and to really focus on the positive and the optimistic aspects of it opportunity so it's what i wanted to ask a little bit about that and turns of you know you i believe contributed a great deal or supported your husband in going through medical school end which is you know a tremendous commitment yeah in terms of time and money and after and after that the marriage ended in i know  a lot of women in my have a hard time moving on from that and might feel old bitterness or resentment and so how were you able to move on from that in and let go and and not get stuck in that resentment or it took a couple of first the first was the conscious decision not to walk away with it from there with  resentment you know as we were trying to save our marriage and to go through counseling on working on a seventeen year marriage and saving that and things happened that you know some of my girlfriends would say oh how could you put up with that or i can't believe that happened and everyone going through a divorce experiences things and i wrote it out because i wanted to if the day came that i needed to say goodbye to that marriage i wanted to be confident that i had invested wholly and thoroughly from my heart i wanted to have a life partner i wanted to be married and the day came  that wasn't meant to be but at on that same day when i knew that i knew i had given the relationship and getting to that day that they're honest that was good for me right so you were able to walk away with an acceptance that those years my husband's love for me had changed in that he didn't want to make that commitment anymore it was very hard and so i spent time with counselors therapy is a great thing i'm a big believer in it a little and i've spent two years with one woman who has just helped me talk it all out and through and shift from reprocessing the past to where i am today to do one being all clear for the future  she was a good service that's great yeah that's great and i think that's so important for people to to hear that when you're going through something like that it's so important to have someone and preferably someone who is not involved or too close to the situation to talk to you and confide in and really work through things and i think when you're able to process in that way it's much easier to let go and move on with your life when you're dealing with someone saying i don't love you anymore it takes a lot to regain your confidence and to have faith in yourself as a person and i mean i literally had to ask myself what is my identity because i'm not the wife anymore i mean we had a very peer oriented marriage i wasn't by any means subservient to i mean i was but it was traditional it was tradition when i was we who did it together and  so i had to learn all that new i remember that their press said well what are your needs and i kind of didn't have a an experience of oh these are my needs i need to think about myself and my well being and two years later i'm very much in tune to what are my needs and how do i want to spend my time and to say my words so that i'm protecting other myself and think about how different your next relationship or marriage will be because of the time you've spent in that i really do mean it that i mean talking about it makes such a difference and to spend that time and to be comfortable in speaking up even silly things you know like shopping at the computer store if x sales person gets in my space you know i'll be more comfortable staying up and protecting what my interests are instead of being intimidated by circumstances so it's been a long learning curve for sure  so that was that was three years ago and so you continued in the same position and was it through the process of kind of recovering from from the divorce that led to your decision to kind of take this break or was it something that happened like was there or was there an impetus that led to a little bit  the house that we had together was a treasure for me i really enjoyed the house it was it was a lovely home that we had fixed up it was an estate sale dump and we had spent a lot of time making it into a nice home and it was and i didn't get to enjoy the finished product and it would have been a lot of stress to have to say i'll sell the house into the divorce at the same time and i also fortunate enough to be able to continue paying for that but at that  point i had my job for my house and i had my house because i had my job and there was really nothing else my divorce was final i had no other responsibilities and  wasn't ready to sell the house and i enjoyed it for a year and a half two years all by myself i challenge myself as a single woman also to care for the house you know up i climbed up on the roof and coast out the gutters by my so that's because no one watched me for safety but i was determined to do that or to spread out the mulch all by myself and to buy the lawn mower and mow the lawn but i don't know that you could do it yourself yeah and i kind of did all four seasons in the house and just took care of it by myself and to know that i could do that and after seventeen years of being with your husband you kind of know what your household responsibilities are you don't even talk about it any experience and then in the fall i do a lot of i eighty audit and we audit four times a year it's a very high demand thing and i came home one day and i'm like i will continue to be that eighty auditor at work in unless i make a change and i had done it for six audit events and i made the choice right then finish the audit and a week later i had lunch with my boss and told them i was ready and then we made a plan that's so  exciting and so so when you when you made that decision did you decide i'm leaving my job and i'm not sure what i'm going to do but i'm just going to change my life you know it was more that i could do anything i knew i could do anything because a my story or tagline story was always i have my house for my job and my job from my house i and otherwise i could do anything and so i was mentally prepared for that and my number one priority in this mission i'm taking is to look for the next town i want to live in you've asked a couple times what's my background and my military background my dad was in the navy travelling has always been a part of my life and to pick up and move has been retained i moved from san diego to new england eleven years ago i knew nobody and  taking this in adventure is it's a big thing but i do have some experience in packing up the whole house and going to the next destination and yeah i mean you're obviously a very independent and  how to be independent in kind of reestablish yourself i'm sure as a child moving from place to place yeah and i mean military families are practical by nature anyway and so you  we rode tripped up and down the california so you're comfortable with that yeah so tell me about some of the doubts and fears you've had since you made this decision because i'm sure some some things had to creep in once you once you gave notice your job and assume but it's interesting in telling my story to strangers people are amazed that i am taking it on and i think because the timeline has been so comfortable and not lengthy but six to eight months in getting here it has been less scary for me than you might  think also we talked about it i'm a project manager and a process engineers and that's planning tasks in the right progression of events and so literally with every day that comes in making this happen i have thought it through in advance and i'm very proactive and risk averse and i've set everything up to be that way for the last three months literally week after week after week all by myself no one no other responsibilities but to get here today april fifteenth and i am here in my biggest stress was an aggressive buyer giving me an aggressive offer on my house and i felt i was being taken in fat and shove and then this morning fitting all the things in my little car that i needed to survive for six weeks literally back to your car with everything that you're taking with you  live for six months and i had to think about things like how am i going to cook food and then i had to shop for a single burner electric stove or how am i going to make coffee because you can't it's not easy to go and buy a non electric coffee maker in the stores i had to go online how would tell us a little bit about your point and so you're literally pulling out of town tomorrow pulling out of town tomorrow i'm taking a little bit of vacation for  a week and a half and going to florida and being with friends and loved ones and then after that rest and relaxation really the the biggest goal is to get warm spend a lot when you're moving town and winters get very long so this was actually one of my coldest winters just because i knew i was leaving so then i will while i'm there on the vacation part i will pick a place to go a private campground that has all the luxuries a pool a lounge a laundry facility and then i will set up camp for about three or four weeks of his day and do you know where you're going to do that you know so you're just really playing it by ear and seeing what draws you in where you feel comfortable all and yeah i mean i pick somewhere in the southeast at this private campground wherever it is to just set up and study and think and read i have about forty five books that i packed in my car and i also think about me and my interests yes of the fifteen years it's been a very aggressive industry it's outsourcing internationally to reduce jobs in i would imagine very stressful in terms of never knowing when you're yes rob maybe it has been i mean my my worst was about four years ago when i had chest pain from stress oh my gosh and then from there you have to teach yourself how to manage the aggressive nature of the industry it's a lean industry people work really hard and are very dedicated and i had a mortgage to pay i was dedicated to surviving matt and i did so now i don't have to make sure that my husband gets through school and that the mortgages in place and  i can think about what's interesting because when you have those obligations day in day out you tinker with hobbies and interests i didn't get deep into it  honest aspects of my career are very high be oriented i genuinely love my project management career and i genuinely love my process engineering background and so there is a lot of fun in that but i also have other interests that i just haven't been able to wholeheartedly spend time on so what are some of those things that you hope to be able to explore in time doing well i envision more of that i just making  lists i shared with you i made a list of all the places i had lived in that i would want to try something that i've never lived in before and i've never lived in a sit down town city lifestyle so i'm going to explore that  do that definitely so that's interesting to me and just to think about that i and how it just is study how i want to spend my day you know to say ok exercise is very important and make that a routine or how i prepare my three meals a day so many of us with corporate lives don't even know that they're eating junk food  and to have some more awareness about what's healthy for me to exercise the dog is a big part of my life and the interest how what kind of job do you want to have how can how do you want to spend your day at your job what kind of ward where do you to wear your i did corporate america with rows of cubes and wearing this and all that and i don't need to re experience it and i want to try that so you don't envision yourself in six months saying well it's been fine but i'm going to go get a job in i again i won't the two things that are most interesting to me is perhaps a sales position in software sales because i've got the operational background but not the sales but are owned by and so that's an asset that i need to acquire from my career portfolio so to speak  sales job and so that's very interesting and then i do have a little entrepreneurial project that is interesting to me and she really needs sales skills to be a solid entrepreneur  d so i think i will probably if i was say today going into a blind i would probably take a conservative sales job or a security oriented sales job learn something new and i'm fortunate enough that i don't have to have the big salary because i don't have the house anymore and and then to really focus on this business plan for the entrepreneurial maybe two or three years ahead that's exciting it is so think vice do you have for people who are watching and thinking oh my gosh i wish i could do something like that feel stuck in their current situation  well i think the first advice would be i'm in an unusual situation in that i didn't have family and children tied me down so to speak and in not being in that situation it's easy for me to say you know don't feel burdened by that but that was always the first excuse on some when chatting with me to say oh i wish i could but i can't because i have family or those and to really think outside the box well how could i do something really dynamic that still accommodates for the children that need to be in school and so just to think about that and not to immediately assume that because you've got made those traditional decisions that you're stuck with them and then for me the advice as to just do it you know one of the seven habits is measure to measure twice cut on and so if you think about it you know in therapy when you work with someone you you say things out loud that end up being your personal accountability and so talking about it and dreaming about it whether it's through prayer or sharing with girlfriends or a therapist when you say it out loud you become accountable to yourself for those who are through and and it makes it happen when you say those words and  the other one is be positive i mean we are so riddled with negativism and the media is just intimidating to even watch that it is possible to have that positive perspective that i can do it right because i mean little ole me as i don't feel any spent more special than anybody else and cube land corporate america and i did it but you're doing it you're doing it you're daring to dream  if you are isn't it and we're very excited for you and we wish you very safe travels over the next six months will be and we will we'll be following up with you and really look forward to hearing how things go and ok and the decisions you made along the way that would be great yeah thank you so much for sharing your story with us today my pleasure if you or anyone you know has a story that they'd like to share that could inspire others please let us know you can contact me at susie at susie's fyvie dot com or contact the belmont media center thanks for joining us today and we will be to we will be checking in with janet